God & gays: the BBC on the Marin Foundation: Get Religion, Sept 29, 2011 September 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Human Sexuality --- The gay issue.Tags: Andrew Marin, BBC, CBN
comments closed
“Can one man build effective bridges between evangelical Christians and Chicago’s gay community?”
This question kicks off a fascinating article written by Christopher Landau for the BBC World Service’s Heart and Soul Programme entitled “Why conservative Christians flock to a Chicago gay bar“. I honor the BBC for tackling this difficult story; one with landmines for the unwary journalist.
But I ask, who would criticize a story about Andrew Marin: a man who “believes that polite, honest conversation between people of all perspectives is essential if Christians are to address questions about sexuality more effectively”? Who would be so heartless as to be against peace, love and happiness? It would be like drowning kittens.
I answer, me. This profile misses the mark. In its attempt to allow Andrew Marin to tell his story, it neglects to put that story into context. It makes assumptions and value judgments about the Evangelical Christianity and the GLBT movement that Marin seeks to reconcile without allowing the protagonists to define their terms or explain their cause.
This BBC story is quite similar to an Aug 2010 CBN broadcast entitled “Christian’s Outreach to Gays: I’m Sorry“. It too tees one up for Marin, not pressing him to define or defend his views, nor presenting opposing or critical comments. Marin even offers the same “Bible-banging homophobic” ‘money’ quote in each piece. He has his patter down pat.
Am I saying Marin’s work is misguided? No.
I am not offering opinions about his ministry or Christian moral teaching or the gay critique of institutional Christianity. It is the way the story has been crafted that I find unsatisfactory. No dead cats here.
Follow me then inside and see if you come out where I do.
The article begins by stating Marin is a “straight” evangelical Christian who:
.. works to try to bring Christians and gay people together in open conversation about sexuality and spirituality – and that includes running a large-scale meeting four times a year at Roscoe’s, one of America’s most famous gay bars.
That is no small achievement in a culture where openly gay people and evangelical Christians have long viewed each other with suspicion.
The scene has now been set and the BBC’s editorial voice speaks, saying “[Marin] believes that too many Christians don’t understand the complexity of the small number of Bible verses that mention homosexuality – he also thinks that gay people are often too quick to dismiss Christianity.”
On the heals of these strong sentiments, the story moves to a chronicle of Marin’s evolving beliefs and how he came to this work.
He had grown up in a conservative Christian household, and says he was “the biggest Bible-banging homophobic kid you ever met”. .. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought there was no way my theological belief system could ever line up with my [gay] friends’ way of life, so I ended up cutting ties with them.”
But Andrew Marin says that over the following months, he believed God was asking him to get back in touch with his friends and apologise to them.
A few weeks later, along with two of the three friends, he moved into Boystown [a gay neighborhood in Chicago].
The article then offers a colorful anecdote from his ministry and an explanation of his worldview.
One of the most unusual aspects of the Foundation’s work are its Living in the Tension gatherings, where people from all perspectives gather together to explore questions about Christian faith and sexuality. .. Most intriguing were two gay Christian men who had reached dramatically different conclusions about faith and sexuality.
Will is an openly gay man, and a pastor in the United Methodist Church.
He says he has resolved a “creative tension” he initially felt between his calling to ministry and his sexuality.
Sitting opposite him was Brian, who also says he’s always known he was gay – but whose traditional theology meant he chose to marry a woman and has since fathered a child.
He says that falling in love with his wife was “an experience that I can only say was through God himself bringing my wife and me together”.
A gay clergyman and an ex-gay: a nice counterpoint. This leads to the story’s cri de coeur:
But the Marin Foundation believes that polite, honest conversation between people of all perspectives is essential if Christians are to address questions about sexuality more effectively.
Not everyone is convinced that Christians are ready – or able – to have many such discussions. .. He says that the Marin Foundation simply wants to get gay people thinking about Christian spirituality in its broadest sense, without a disproportionate emphasis on sexual morality.
“What we try and do is help the person live the most faithful, God-honouring life that they can through their understanding of where God is leading them.”
This open-ended approach will frustrate both traditionalist and progressive Christians.
But few can argue with the fact that Andrew Marin’s foundation has enabled many conservative churches to begin open discussions about sexuality for the first time.
Now what is wrong with that? Well there is the small matter of hyperbole: Marin’s work has led “many” conservative churches to discuss human sexuality “for the first time”. Which churches? Or does he mean congregations? It seems conservative churches have been talking about sex for quite some time. Controversies over contraception, divorce and remarriage, the swinging 60′s, and now gay rights have been topics of seemingly unending discussion for the past seventy-five years, while the Bible seems to have had a bit to say about this (c.f. the Apostle Paul).
An expert’s voice is heard towards the close, a Harvard professor who says “my hope is that I would be willing to kneel at a communion table with my bitterest enemy in these debates.” Yet this quote shows the Harvard man holds a particular theological view of the Eucharist as a sacrament of unity that would not be shared by conservative evangelicals. For conservative evangelicals, one must have a shared doctrine to share communion, while for Roman Catholics, the Orthodox and like groups Eucharistic discipline forbids allowing those outside the fold from receiving the sacraments.
But more than this, the voices of evangelical Christians and the gay non-Christian community are missing from this article and last year’s CBN story. Robert Gagnon, the leading scholar on the traditional side of the debate, has sharply critiqued Marin’s work finding it to lack theological and Scriptural vigor. The blogosphere is also replete with critics of Marin from the opposite corner. Where are they?
Why spoil the sweetness and light with clouds of criticism? Because such reporting is unfaithful to the story.
American journalism is founded upon a methodology best articulated by the German historian Leopold von Ranke. It is a scientific objective worldview that sees the task of the journalist (like the historian) to report what actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen). In this school of writing, the journalist must set aside his own views and present a story on its own terms, to establish what the facts are and let the facts dictate the story.
Omitting dissent, in this view of reporting, gives a false impression of the past and injects the present into the past.
These high minded words beg the question whether such a project is even possible in this post-modernist age. Is it still possible for a reporter to show what actually happened?
God, gender and gays – BBC bias on display: Get Religion Sept 10, 2011 September 29, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion.Tags: BBC, Mogoeng Mogoeng, South Africa
comments closed
“World Ends Tomorrow: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest!”
American lexicographer Barry Popik credits comedian Mort Sahl with having coined this fictitious New York Times headline that encapsulates the Gray Lady’s liberal world view. The New York Times reports talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh incorporates this joke about the weltanschauung of the left-wing press into his repertoire. But El Rushbo attributes this bias to the Washington Post.
One of the complaints of media bias of longest standing is that leveled against the BBC. The corporation’s reporting style has generated a Wikipedia entry and launched a host of blogs chronicling its errors, suppositions and biases.
In 2006 the Mail on Sunday summarized the results of an internal BBC review:
Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment.
They also said that as an organisation it was disproportionately over-represented by gays and ethnic minorities.
It was also suggested that the Beeb is guilty of political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism and of being anti-American and against the countryside.
So what does this all have to do with God, gender and gays? I’ve digressed from the story under consideration to introduce to a North American audience the phenomenon of BBC bias. I am illustrating this point with a recent article from the BBC’s website concerning the appointment of the new chief justice of South Africa. “Zuma appoints controversial Judge Mogoeng to top post” begins with:
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has appointed a judge who is an ordained pastor with controversial views on rape and homosexuality as chief justice.
Lobby groups had urged Mr Zuma not to appoint Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng as South Africa’s top judge, saying he was lenient on rapists, which he denies.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest incidences of rape.
Mr Zuma said he was confident that with Judge Mogoeng at the helm, the judiciary was in good hands.
Last week, Judge Mogoeng said God wanted him to be chief justice.
How about that! In five sentences we have established, or perhaps better said, insinuated that the new chief justice is an anti-gay anti-women Christian minister who believes God is talking to him. The article continues with a statement the judge’s nomination was opposed by “top lawyers”, human rights groups and trade unions, and then states the Nobel Women’s Initiative, (I had to look this up too), had issued a statement denouncing the judge as being soft on crime.
The article then discussed the incidence of rape and crime in South Africa and noted the judge had reduced the life sentence of one convicted rapist to a term of 18 years and of having reduced the term of imprisonment of an attempted rapist from five to two years. The judge had also “suggested that sex between a husband and his wife could not be considered rape, AP reports.” ‘Suggested’ mind you, not ‘said’.
The judge was given a chance to defend himself and the Christian motif was resurrected.
During his nomination hearing last week, Judge Mogoeng denied he was insensitive to rape.
He said he had also increased the sentences of rapists – in some cases to life imprisonment.
Judge Mogoeng – who is an ordained pastor with the Winners Chapel International, which condemns homosexuality – said he would uphold South Africa’s constitution, which respects gay rights.
“When a position comes like this one, I wouldn’t take it unless I had prayed and satisfied myself that God wants me to take it,” Judge Mogoeng said during his nomination hearing.
Why is this biased or blinkered reporting? Let’s begin with the ‘controversial’ descriptor. Belief that homosexual behavior is sinful is controversial (and wrong-headed) for the BBC, but no source is cited in this article to say South Africans believe the judge’s views on homosexuality are controversial. The Beeb offers examples of the criticisms of those who see the judge as being soft on rape, but are content to illustrate his controversial views on homosexuality by saying the Mogoeng is a pastor in a Protestant denomination that holds to traditional moral teachings.
The “God wanted him to be chief justice” comment, left hanging out there on its own without explanation, insinuates the judge is some sort of nutter that takes his cues from ‘sky pixies’ over head. The qualifier, the judge prayed about this appointment and was satisfied that “God wants me to take it”, is left until the end. And in Christian circles is not only non-controversial, but what you should do in these circumstances.
The BBC also advances the notion that belief that homosexual behavior is sinful entails the belief that gays and lesbians should not be accorded civil rights. This, of course, is nonsense. The Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church .. for that matter just about all churches short of the Fred Phelps crew supports the basic human rights of gay and lesbian people and rejects as sinful any acts of prejudice and discrimination against them.
The story is also incomplete and focuses on areas of concern to the BBC, rather than to the participants in the story. Yes, questions of gender bias were raised by opponents of the nomination. However, the principle opposition to the ruling African National Congress objected to the judge’s appointment because he was an unqualified party hack. The judicial fraternity, e.g., “top lawyers”, believed Judge Mogoeng was not up to the job. Bloomberg News reported:
Mogoeng “is not the best person for the job in the eyes of a lot of the legal community,” Cathy Albertyn, a law professor at the University of Witwatersrand, said today in a telephone interview from Johannesburg. “He wasn’t able to express any kind of constitutional vision. It’s a pity that we have set the constitutional test at a level that doesn’t allow us to insist on the best candidate.”
An op-ed piece in the Times (South Africa) argued Judge Meogong was a mediocrity. The G. Harold Carswell of the South African bench.
Mogoeng had made about 10 reported judgments before joining the Constitutional Court. Given that he had been a judicial officer for more than 10 years, this is an important intellectual indictment. It points to either a lack of industriousness or judicial work of a standard not deemed sufficiently noteworthy for editors of law reports to record for posterity. By contrast, more respected jurists, such as some of his Constitutional Court colleagues, have literally hundreds of reported judgments.
Whether the bias and incomplete reporting is unintentional or merely sloppy is unclear. However, such a stance is not new. Writing in the Sunday Times in 2007, Antony Jay, the author of ‘Yes, Minister’ stated that from 1955 to 1964 he was:
part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Harold Macmillan’s premiership and I do not think that my former colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters.
But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place – you name it, we were anti it.
Caveat lector .. reader beware.
Lord’s Prayer out in Australia: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 p 6. September 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Atheism, Australia, school prayer
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Complaints by devotees of the new atheism in Australia have beaten back the Lord’s Prayer from the public square. A primary school in Perth’s northern suburbs has ended the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer before school assemblies after some parents complained that it violated the law by promoting religious belief over non-belief.
On 20 September, Edgewater Primary School principal Julie Tombs wrote to parents announcing the cessation of prayers after 25 years, after a survey of parents indicated that some were opposed to the practice.
“We acknowledge that of the parents who did respond to the survey, many wanted to retain the Lord’s Prayer and it is right that we continue to recite it at culturally appropriate times such as Christmas and Easter, as part of our educational programme,” Mrs Tombs said in a statement.
“However, at this school we have students from a range of backgrounds and it is important to consider all views and not promote one set of religious beliefs and practices over another.”
A survey sent by the school to parents found that a small minority were offended by their children having to recite the Lord’s Prayer once every two weeks. Parents who enrol their children at the school had been informed that recital of the Lord’s Prayer was part of the school assembly programme.
The complaints to the school, which is in an area with few religious minorities, arose from parents who opposed any prayer. While only 36 per cent of the parents responded to the survey and of that group only a minority were opposed to the prayers, Mrs Tombs stated the argument that Western Australia Education Act forbade state schools from fostering sectarian religious creeds.
WA Premier Colin Barnett told the AAP that “WA is basically a Christian-based community and I think its desirable to have the Lord’s Prayer said.”
However, the “decision rests at the school level. Certainly schools can, and I would encourage them to, have the Lord’s Prayer.”
The Very Rev John Shepherd, the Dean of Perth, concurred, saying there was a place for the Lord’s Prayer in a multi-faith environment at government schools.
“I think there is a place [for the Lord’s Prayer], just as there is a place for exposing children to the full knowledge of other faiths,” Dr Shepherd said, adding “it does embody values to which we all ascribe.”
One mother interviewed by Nine News as she picked her children up from school summarized the complaints as being “ridiculous” for giving a vocal minority control over public life.
Adelaide Catholic archdiocese lambasted for delay in investigating abuse: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 p 6. September 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Traditional Anglican Communion.Tags: Adelaide, Nick Xenophon
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The abuse allegations raised by Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) Archbishop John Hepworth against a priest serving in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide have entered the political arena.
Last week South Australia Senator Nick Xenophon demanded the archdiocese stand down the accused priest pending the outcome of the abuse allegations brought by Archbishop Hepworth. Archbishop Hepworth informed the archdiocese of his abuse at the hands of a serving priest in 2009, but no action has been taken so far. Allegations brought to the Archdiocese of Melbourne by the TAC archbishop were found to be true and have led to an apology and an offer of compensation from the Catholic Church.
But the archdiocese declined to act, saying the abuse was alleged to have taken place against an adult. Under the Church’s guidelines it did not warrant an immediate suspension, they said. Senator Xenophon named Mgr Ian Dempsey as the alleged abuser.
Mgr Dempsey, the former vicar-general of the archdiocese and a Royal Australian Navy chaplain, has denied the charges. The Australian Civil Liberties Association denounced Xenophon for using his parliamentary privileges to unveil Mgr Dempsey’s identity. Those privileges, the organization pointed out, are intended to protect lawmakers while they discuss legislative issues. Since the Hepworth allegations have no bearing on legislation, the senator’s invocation of his privilege was “the height of irresponsibility,” the group charged.
Archbishop Hepworth’s allegations have also snared Mgr David Cappo, the vicar general of the Adelaide archdiocese. “I believe the weakness of that response can be traced in part to Mgr Cappo, who for reasons not fully explained, has failed to act in a timely and decisive manner on this important issue,” Senator Xenophon told the Senate.
Mgr Cappo had been appointed chairman of the government’s Mental Health Commission. The vicar general has been accused of frustrating the investigation of Archbishop Hepworth’s complaint in Adelaide. Last week Mgr Cappo said the sexual abuse case would have “the potential to distract from the important work” of the commission and resigned.
However, he rejected “any suggestion that I or the Church handled the complaint by John Hepworth with anything other than proper and due diligence.”
On 19 September the archdiocese laid the blame for the delay in the investigation upon Archbishop Hepworth, telling the Adelaide Advertiser that while he informed the archdiocese of the abuse in 2009, he did not formally request an investigation until this year.
Archbishop Hepworth told the Advertiser he did not authorise the investigation in 2009 as it was made conditional upon his meeting with Mgr Dempsey to press the allegations — a charge the archdiocese has denied.
Senator Xenophon responded that six months had passed since the archdiocese had received its signed complaint. “Whichever way they put it they failed to treat serious allegations with the urgency they required,” he said.
“Why didn’t the Church act with urgency on this to investigate the allegations. It owed it to John Hepworth, it owed it to the priest accused, and it owed it to the parish,” the senator said.
Washington bishops in plea for prisoners’ release from Iran: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 September 28, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Iran, Washington.Tags: John Chane
comments closed
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, © freethehikers.org
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Episcopal and Roman Catholic Bishops of Washington have travelled to Iran along with two American Muslim leaders to plead for the release of two American hikers imprisoned on espionage charges.
Bishop John Chane and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, along with the executive director, Nihad Awad, and chairman, Larry Shaw, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had been invited to Tehran to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian media reported.
The four were quoted by the Iranian press as having “voiced hope that their request for the release of the two Americans materializes, so that they could effectively work for the release of Iranians imprisoned there upon their return to America.”
Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd were arrested on July 31, 2009 after they strayed into Iran while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in Kurdistan. Shourd was released last year “on humanitarian and medical grounds” and President Ahmadinejad on Sept 13 said the two other hikers would be released upon posting bail of $500,000.
On August 21, Bauer and Fattal were each sentenced to eight years in prison by a revolutionary court in Tehran on charges of espionage and illegal entry. Shourd was also convicted in absentia.
A report in the state-run FARS news agency indicated the hikers release may be conditional upon the release of Iranians jailed in the US. FARS stated “more than 60 Iranian nationals are being held in US prisons, 11 of them on political grounds and without any proof or evidence.”
The Iranian news agency said that during their meeting with President Ahmadinejad “the four American religious leaders expressed the hope that the trend of developments would move in a way that they can push for the freedom of the Iranian inmates in the US.”
Iran’s judiciary has not given any timetable for the release of Fattal and Bauer, but U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week said Washington had received word through a number of sources that their release was imminent.
It was reported this morning that the two would be released on bail later today.
Archbishop’s face revealed: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 p 7. September 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: forensic archeology, Simon of Sudbury, University of Dundee
comments closed
The face of Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The results of the examination of the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury are in, and they are not pretty.
On 16 March, forensic scientists led by Professor Caroline Wilkinson from the University of Dundee scanned the mummified head of Simon of Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury killed during the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381.
The CT was taken to allow a forensic sculptor from the University of Dundee to reconstruct the face of the archbishop in clay. The finished head of Simon of Sudbury was unveiled on Sept 14 at St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury, where his mummified head has rested since his execution in 1381.
Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, Simon was named Bishop of London in 1362 and was translated to Canterbury in 1375. In 1380 he was also named Lord Chancellor by King Richard II.
In 1381, the 14-year-old king levied a poll tax to finance military campaigns overseas. Attempts to collect the tax prompted uprisings in Essex and Kent, and a march on London. Archbishop Sudbury and Sir Robert Hales, the Lord Treasurer, took refuge in the Tower of London, but were seized and taken to Tower Hill where he and Hales were beheaded on 14 June, 1381.
The archbishop’s body was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, but his head, which had been placed on a spike on Tower Bridge, was brought back to Suffolk in a barrel of brine, and buried at St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury.
With the CT scan results in hand, forensic artist Adrienne Barker recreated the archbishop’s facial features and completed a series of 3-D bronze-resin casts of his head.
“I hope people in Sudbury like what we’ve done but he’s a strange-looking fellow so it’ll be interesting to see their reactions,” said Ms Barker.
“The first thing we had to do was carry out an initial assessment of the skull to determine its age, sex and ancestry. We then sculpted each muscle of the face and built this up on the cast we made of the skull before adding a final layer which represents the skin.
“The only problem we really encountered was that there was still facial tissue attached to the skull, which we managed to remove using computer modelling software before sending the CT data away for a rapid prototype model of the skull to be made.
“The past year has been the best of my life as I’ve immersed myself in this reconstruction. It has been absolutely fascinating to learn the story behind Simon of Sudbury and to get involved in this work,” she said.
Pakistan Facebook ban?: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 p 7. September 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Blasphemy Laws, Facebook, Pakistan
comments closed
Tweeted image of the Facebook order
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Facebook may be banned in Pakistan for blasphemy.
The Pakistani press has reported the Lahore High Court issued an order on 19 September banning the social networking website. However, as of our going to press, Facebook is still up and running. Sources in Pakistan have also tweeted reports that the story is premature and that the ban has not yet been imposed.
In May 2010, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Technology ordered ISPs to block access to Facebook ahead of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”
Access was then blocked for three days by ISP providers, forcing 4.5 million Pakistani users off of the popular social networking site. An Islamic lawyers group had filed a petition with the court arguing that “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” violated the country’s blasphemy laws. The ban was lifted after Facebook agreed to block the “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” site to visitors from Pakistan and India.
“Everybody Draw Mohammad Day” was a 2010 event in support of free speech and freedom of artistic expression in the United States following the decision by the cable television network Comedy Central to withdraw episode 201 of the cartoon show South Park. Postings on RevolutionMuslim.com website under the pen name Abu Talha al-Amrikee, a man subsequently identified as Zachary Adam Chesser, said the authors of South Park could suffer the fate of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was shot dead by a Muslim extremist.
Writing on Facebook, American cartoonist Molly Norris proposed everybody draw a cartoon of Muhammad as a challenge to critics. By 20 May, 2010 101,870 Facebook members had participated in the event.
A second petition filed by Muhammad Azhar Siddique has asked the court to make the Facebook ban permanent. Mr Siddique has argued the drawing contest that prompted the original controversy was merely the tip of the anti-Muslim iceberg, and that the social networking website was a hotbed of anti-Islamic hatred.
He has asked the civil court to ban Facebook and all other websites that foster “religious hatred” from being viewed in Pakistan and has asked the police to register a criminal case under Section 295-C of the country’s blasphemy laws against those who made objectionable comments about Islam.
The Express Tribune on 20 September reported the Facebook ban order had been given to the Ministry of Information for action, with the judge requesting an update by 6 October. However, a copy of the judge’s order tweeted by human rights activists in Pakistan does not call for a ban, but sets the matter down for further discussion at the 6 October hearing.
The Facebook controversy follows statements made on 17 September by the Interior Minister Rehman Malik who said that if Google and Youtube did not cooperate with the government in its fight against terrorism, the government would block access to their websites and services as well.
Nairobi slum fire kills 119: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 September 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
Prime Minister Raila Odinga visiting the scene of the tragedy
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Kenya has been tapped by the Government of Kenya to lead an ecumenical prayer service for the victims of last week’s Sinai slum fire.
On 12 September a gas pipeline exploded in Lunga Lunga, an industrial area in Northern Nairobi that has also become home to over 100,000 squatters . Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi told VOA the explosion was caused by a leaking valve. Petrol then spilled into an open sewer in the Sinai slum settlement.
“When people smelled oil there, they went to fetch it and it caught fire because some were cooking, others were smoking, so there were various explosions in the place, and that is the cause of so many deaths,” said Mr Mukuru.
The government reported that 119 people had died as a result of the inferno; 37 died in hospital, while 82 bodies were recovered at the site.
In 2008 the government ordered residents of the area to leave. But as soon as the slum was cleared new migrants into the city took their place. Similar pipeline fires have killed hundreds of people across Africa in recent years. Migration into the cities and the dearth of housing has seen shanty towns and squatters’ settlements founded below power lines, alongside railroad tracks and around industrial plants.
On 22 September Archbishop Eliud Wabukala will lead an interfaith service for the dead at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park. Families will then be able to collect the remains for private burial; 49 bodies have yet to be identified.
Anglican Unscripted: Sept 25 2011 September 27, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Anglican.TV, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of Ireland, Global South, Lambeth 2008, Property Litigation, Rio Grande.comments closed
http://blip.tv/play/g5IjgtWfEAI.htmlhttp://a.blip.tv/api.swf#g5IjgtWfEAI
Today is history is still happening and Kevin and George explain the Déjà vu that surrounds the first and (maybe) last Lambeth conference. Sound confusing — then click to play.
Also in this episode your hosts discuss the Global Souths momentous challenges on the other side of the Great Wall, and Canterbury Contributor Peter Ould brings us news on the new woes in the Church of Ireland. Finally AS Haley has help for those of you who can’t sleep at night because you are uncertain if TEC will ever change?
Broken communion for the Church of Ireland: The Church of England Newspaper, Sep 23, 2011 p 5. September 25, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland.Tags: gay marriage
comments closed
Consecration of Bishop Patrick Rooke of Tuam
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The outcry over the Bishop of Cashel & Ossory’s support for an Irish dean’s gay civil union has forced the bishop to skip the consecration of the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry.
Church leaders in Northern Ireland told The Church of England Newspaper that the Rt. Rev. Michael Burrows had been advised to stay away from the Sept 8 consecration of Bishop Patrick Rooke at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. The bishop had been told his support for clergy gay civil unions had broken the collegiality of the church and his presence would cause some participants in the ceremony to refrain from receiving the Eucharist with him.
Bishop Burrow’s office did not respond to questions from CEN, but the Church of Ireland’s press officer did confirm that the bishop “did not attend and that this was his own decision. I have no knowledge of any advice from anyone about staying away or concern with regard to receiving communion.”
He added that Bishop Burrows provided the following comment to The Belfast Newsletter and to the Church of Ireland Gazette on Sept 9.
“I was indeed sad not to be in Armagh yesterday not least as Bishop Rooke’s father and mine were friends and colleagues in Dublin diocese many years ago. However, I felt, given the current preoccupations particularly of sections of the Northern media, that there was some danger of my presence causing distraction in a manner that would be unseemly on such a solemn occasion. So I offered my sincere prayers for the new bishop privately and at home.”
The threat of schism hangs over the Church of Ireland in the wake of revelations that Bishop Burrows permitted the Dean of Leighlin, the Very Rev. Tom Gordon, to register a same-sex civil union.
The Primate of All-Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh Dr. Alan Harper told the Sept 11 “Sunday Sequence” programme of BBC Radio Ulster he was “very, very concerned at the potential for division” within the church over homosexuality.
In 2003 the Irish bishops agreed to maintain the church’s historic teachings on marriage and human sexuality, whilst maintaining collegiality that respected the diversity of views of its members. There was not a “broad consensus for change” within the Church of Ireland for changing this view, Dr. Harper said.
But there was “need for discussions, first in the House of Bishops and then in the General Synod,” Dr. Harper said, adding the bishops had “determined to revisit the discussions of 2003 in meetings this autumn.”
In a joint statement issued to the Portadown Times last week, clergy from the rural Deanery of Kilmore said the union between Dean Gordon and Mark Duley had ”placed us in a position where we feel we must make some kind of statement by way of reassurance and support to our parishioners.
“To fail to say anything would allow the picture reported by sections of the media, and exaggerated by the uninformed, to stand, by default. The matter of the Very Rev. Tom Gordon’s civil partnership on the one hand is a matter for his and his partner’s individual conscience, but it is a move which many people of the Church of Ireland are unable to accept.
“In the absence of a resolution to this matter determined by the whole Church of Ireland, we the serving clergy of Kilmore Rural Deanery wish to reassure our people that the recent development has not changed the Church’s position on marriage, nor has it accepted that a sexual relationship outside marriage is in keeping with God’s intention,” the statement said.
Canterbury’s international agenda in tatters: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 23, 2011 p 1. September 23, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Consultative Council, Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Global South, Lambeth 2008, Primates Meeting 2011.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s strategy to hold together the Anglican Communion was left in tatters this week after the primates representing the Global South coalition of churches gave his leadership a vote of no confidence.
The Global South primates—representing the majority of the Anglican Communion’s members—have repudiated the course chosen by Dr. Rowan Williams for the “instruments of communion”, saying it lacked moral and theological integrity.
With the Anglican Covenant process under increasing pressure from liberals and conservatives, and his programme of dialogue around the topics dividing the church, but not addressing the divisions within the church, rejected by a majority of the Communion, Dr. Rowan Williams’ international agenda appears to have all but collapsed.
The latest blow came in a statement released after Aug 30 to Sept 10 Global South meeting in China. While the primates said they were “wholeheartedly committed to the unity of Anglican Communion and recognize the importance of the historic See of Canterbury,” they were not pleased with what Dr. Williams’ subordinates were doing.
The instruments of communion: the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, “have become dysfunctional and no longer have the ecclesial and moral authority to hold the Communion together.”
The Global South primates stated it was “regrettable” that the 2008 Lambeth Conference had been “designed [so as] not to make any resolutions that would have helped to resolve the crisis facing the Communion.”
The Dublin 2011 Primates Meeting was also a failure. It had been “planned without prior consultation with the Primates in regard to the agenda” and there had been “no commitment to follow through the recommendations of previous Primates’ Meetings.”
They noted that the call made by the 1988 and 1998 Lambeth Conferences for the Primates Meeting to “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” had been “completely set aside.”
The primates’ strongest criticisms, however, were reserved for the London-based Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) which it accused of bias.
The ACC, “the Anglican Communion Standing Committee, and Communion-level commissions such as the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) and the Anglican Communion Liturgical Commission no longer reflect the common mind of the churches of the Communion because many members from the Global South can no longer with good conscience attend these meetings as issues that are aggravating and tearing the fabric of the Communion are being ignored,” the primates said.
The archbishops of Southeast Asia, Uganda, Jerusalem and the Middle East, West Africa, the Southern Cone, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Myanmar (Burma), and Central Africa observed the communion had “undergone a tremendous transformation in recent decades. Today, the majority of Anglicans are found no longer in the west, but in churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America that are firmly committed to our historic faith and order.”
“At the same time,” the primates noted that many Anglicans in the West were “yielding to secular pressure to allow unacceptable practices in the name of human rights and equality.”
These political ideals must not trump God’s unchanging word, they argued. “Beginning with the undermining of Scriptural authority and two millennia of church tradition, the erosion of orthodoxy has gone as far as the ordination and consecration of active gay and lesbian clergy and bishops, and the development of liturgies for same-sex marriage.”
The primates Sept 9 statement said they would not be quitting the communion, however, but would focus their energies on creating a “Decade of Mission and Networking” as a “unifying vocational platform on which we realize and build up our common life and witness.”
Economic and educational ties within the Global South would be strengthened, they said, and gave their commitment to “support faithful orthodox Anglican churches and groups in the west which share our historic faith and order.”
What I am is what I am — Womenpriests and The Age: Get Religion, Sept 22, 2011 September 22, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism, Roman Catholic Church, Women Priests.Tags: Patricia Fresen, Roman Catholic Womenpriests, The Age
comments closed
First published in Get Religion.
A story this week in The Age, Melbourne’s major daily newspaper, leaves me puzzled. I am not sure what the paper’s religion editor, Barney Zwartz is doing in his article “Ex-nun a cardinal sinner in the mind of the church”. Read at one level, it c0uld be a silly puff piece. Yet there are hints the story could have a deeper meaning—wheels within wheels—where The Age’s editorial voice is heard by its allowing the subject to impeach herself.
It also raises the philosophical question for journalists: to what extent may a person identify themselves? What shapes reality? The social construction given by the subject of a story, or an outside arbiter—an eternal truth, natural law, the AP style book?
Take a look at The Age story. Is it a puff piece, or absurdist fable? “We report, you decide” as Fox likes to say.
The subject is the visit to Australia of one of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a group that defines itself as an:
international movement .. [whose purpose is] .. to primarily spiritually prepare, ordain, and support women from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, who are committed to an inclusive model of Church, and who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to minister within the Roman Catholic Church.
The gist of the article is that one of its leaders, Bishop Patricia Fresen, is visiting Australia to build support for the organization in hopes of expansion down under.
The article begins with a flourish:
Patricia Fresen prefers being quietly subversive to openly confrontational, but the 70-year-old former Dominican nun is like a purple rag to a bull to the Vatican.
She says she is a Catholic woman bishop, properly ordained by a male bishop in the sacrament passed down by laying on hands from the first apostles. The official church says that by that act she ceased to be a Catholic and it has excommunicated her (banned her from the church).
Bishop Fresen – now a bishop in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests church – rejects the excommunication.
Cute. I confess I had to think for a moment before I got the color joke, (e.g., substituting purple, the color associated with a bishop, for red), but the meaning is clear, Bishop Fresen is an irritant to the Roman Catholic Church.
The language in the second sentence however begins to cloud the issues. Bishop Fresen says she is a “Catholic woman bishop”—the word “Roman” being conspicuous by its absence—while the “official church”, which one presumes is the Roman Catholic Church due to the reference to the “Vatican” in the first sentence, says ‘no she’s not’ and has excommunicated her. The bishop responds by saying she rejects this rejection and the author’s voice identifies the former Dominican nun as “now” being a bishop in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests church—note here we have the first use of the “Roman” descriptor.
Follow me so far? Former nun c0nsecrated a bishop for a dissident group/sect rejects her excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church for having participated in the consecration service.
The article continues with the information that Bishop Fresen is South African by birth, and thus may cloak herself in the mantle of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Stirring justice quotes inserted here: “An unjust law must not be obeyed but broken.”
The bishop also adds that she is not alone in being a rebel, gathering those who use birth control, the divorced and remarried, and sexually active gays into her camp as fellow excommunicates from the Roman Catholic family.
A historical note is offered, as is a word about the church’s present size and the sort of people it has attracted:
[History] Roman Catholic WomenPriests was launched in 2002 when an anonymous Catholic bishop ordained seven women secretly on a boat on the Danube. Bishop Fresen was ordained a priest in 2003, a bishop in 2005 and excommunicated in 2007. .. [Numbers] Now the group has nearly 200 women priests in North America and Europe, .. [Members] “Nearly all are people on the fringes of the church, who want to be Catholic but are very critical of some aspects. They are forming churches with much more communitarian structures, much more accountability on the part of the leaders.”
The article closes with Bishop Fresen’s belief the Petrine system is on its last legs.
“Benedict, a German Pope, is very unpopular in Germany. He’s become a figure of fun. I think he’s bringing the papacy to a quick end, and I don’t think there will be many more popes elected this way,” she says.
The authoritarian structure based on the Pope and Vatican bureaucracy is collapsing, she says, and soon the Bishop of Rome will be just another Italian bishop. But the church will survive, and she will be a part. ”I am still a Roman Catholic, very much on the edges. They don’t want me, but I’m not going. As [theologian] Hans Kung says, ‘Less Pope, more Jesus.’ “
That’s the story. Read on one level, it comes across a being more of a press release on behalf of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement than a news story. Bishop Fresen speaks, but no voice from the “official” Roman Catholic Church is heard to give these claims context.
Why can women not be priests in the Roman Catholic Church? What does it mean to be excommunicated? Is the bishop an irritant to the Roman Catholic Church, or is she even on its radar? No answers here to these questions.
The statement that a Catholic bishop consecrated the first Womenpriests needs to be expanded. Yes, a Catholic bishop did consecrate seven women priests on Aug 5, 2002 at a ceremony held on a Danube steamer. The catholic bishop in question, Rómulo Antonio Braschi, is a bishop of the Charismatic Catholic Church of Christ the King in Argentina.
All Roman Catholics are Catholics but not all Catholics are Roman Catholics. Old Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and host of other groups lay claim to the moniker ‘catholic’. You can even listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the noted Presbyterian preacher and popular radio Bible teacher, preach on this point in his sermon: “You are a Catholic priest”.
A superficial reading shows it to be an incomplete, rather one-sided mess. But could there not be more to it than this? Perhaps The Age is giving the bishop a pulpit and thereby allowing her to impeach herself. No contradictory voice is needed because the subject’s views are so extraordinary.
Support for this view could be derived from the structure of the article. In the closing paragraphs Bishop Fresen makes her strongest statement about Benedict being a “figure of fun” and the imminent collapse of the Petrine system that will leave the pope as “just another Italian bishop.”
This is great stuff for a reporter, yet it is buried in the closing paragraphs. The Age starts out with who she is and ends with what she believes, when what she believes is more newsworthy. Could it be the story is setting is subject up for a fall by closing in this manner? Or is The Age content to let Bishop Fresen craft her own identity?
As thinkers from John Locke to Margaret Mead and today’s many “social constructionists” like to say, people are simply whatever they are conditioned to be. Bishop Fresen believes the church’s construct of gender being determinative as to ordination violates the deeper meaning of Scripture.
The Roman Catholic Church takes the opposite view, believing it is not possible for women to be priests because Christ himself chose no women to serve among the Apostles. It lacks the authority to contravene Christ’s example. Its precise position is that articulated by John Paul II in 1992: “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”
How then should a journalist approach these competing claims? “I am what I say I am” vs. “You are what you are.”
Home invasion in Harare: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 8. September 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Crime, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Harare, Nolbert Kunonga
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Harare was the victim of a home invasion last week, after four men entered his home on the evening of 8 September, robbing the bishop and his wife.
It is unclear whether the thefts were politically motivated. Bishop Chad Gandiya and the Church of the Province of Central Africa have been locked in a violent struggle with former bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga, an ally of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF Party, over the control of church assets.
The assault comes amidst continuing waves of political violence in the Central Africa country. On 1 September, Colin Zietsman, one of the country’s few remaining white commercial farmers, was murdered on his Centenary Farm in Mashonaland Central’s Centenary district.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC) released a statement on 10 September reporting that in the latest instance of political intimidation, two of its members had been hospitalized “after they were abducted and assaulted by Zanu-PF hooligans.”
Harare police spokesman Inspector James Sabau offered the known facts on the attack on the Bishop in a statement printed by Newsday. “The complainant [Bishop Chad Gandiya] was confronted by four people who entered his home through an unlocked lounge room door armed with stones, knives and machetes.
“They ordered the complainant and his family to lie down and they complied. The robbers then asked for money and they were given $600.”
The thieves ransacked the house, taking three laptop computers, four mobile phones and jewellery, the police said and “then locked the complainant and his family in the bathroom.”
The Bishop was able to free himself and reported the thefts to the Marlborough Police Station.
The police statement noted: “We are having problems of both plain and armed robberies. They are entering through unlocked doors between 6pm and 9pm. “That is the new trend that is there now and we urge people to lock their doors all the time to avoid robberies, especially in the low density suburbs.”
In an email to supporters, Bishop Gandiya reported that the thieves “threatened to kill us if we did not give them money. They searched my son’s bedroom and ours for money and any valuables they could get. They literally trashed our bedroom. They took my laptop and my son’s two laptops and all our cell phones.”
“We rejoice and thank God that none of us were hurt. We simply did what they told us to do,” the Bishop said, but added he was “very suspicious of this robbery. It seems what they were after were just the laptops and phones. I am a little challenged in as far as communication is concerned at the moment. Although we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed and we do not lose hope.”
Orphanage seized by Dr. Kunonga: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 8. September 21, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Nolbert Kunonga, Sharia Law
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Orphanages, convents and mission hospitals are the latest church facilities to be seized by the breakaway bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga.
On 11 September, sheriff’s deputies accompanied by supporters of Dr Kunonga ejected the staff of the Arthur Shearly Cripps Children’s Home — an orphanage 100 kilometres south of Harare in Chikwaka. Three nursing sisters were ordered to leave the premises immediately, while the five other staff were given 24 hours notice to vacate the property.
It is not known who will now care for the more than 100 orphans living at the facility.
The matron at the orphanage, Sister Dorothy Makwarimba told Newsday: “The messenger of court ordered us to move out immediately. He had court papers which said the property now belongs to Kunonga and since we are refusing to worship under his diocese, we had to go,” she said.
The notice of ejectment dated 6 September, 2011 signed by the Deputy Sheriff for Murewa, ordered the sisters to leave the orphanage and the Convent of the Sisters of the Blessed Lady Mary, and also ordered the priest at the neighbouring St John’s Church to turn that property over to Dr Kunonga.
Attorneys from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on 9 September filed an emergency motion asking the notice of ejectment be stayed. A hearing before Justice Tendai Uchena will be held on 14 September to consider their motion.
On 4 August, Zimbabwe Supreme Court Chief Justice Chidyausiku gave an order in chambers that gave custody of the buildings to Dr Kunonga’s faction pending the final adjudication of the lawsuit over their ownership.
While the order attempted to preserve the status quo, the ruling has been used by Dr Kunonga to evict clergy from their vicarages — which had so far remained under the control of the Anglican Church — and now orphanages.
On 24 August lawyers for the diocese filed an appeal with the Zimbabwe Supreme Court asking for an en banc review of the chief justice’s order.
Diocesan lawyers argued that the chief justice’s ruling violated the rules of judicial procedure. They asked the full court to mark the order “null and void” and to preserve the status quo pending a final resolution of the dispute.
African call to excommunicate those who enter into a gay marriage: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 6. September 20, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Harare, James Tengatenga, Nolbert Kunonga, Rowan Williams
comments closed
Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Anglicans who contract same-sex marriages or gay civil unions will be excommunicated, the Bishop of Harare said this week. His remarks come as church leaders in Central Africa denied charges leveled by the breakaway bishop of Harare that the Church of the Province of Central Africa had endorsed the “pro-gay” agenda of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.
In a statement released on Sept 9, Bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare said his diocese conformed its teaching to the Bible. “Whatever the Church believes in and does is therefore within the confines of the Bible, and not informed by human standards and speculation,” Dr. Gandiya said.
Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi told reporters the Malawian church had no truck with the new teachings on human sexuality. .
In an interview with the Malawi Sunday Times published on Sept 11, Bishop Tengatenga, the Dean of the Anglican Church of Malawi and chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, also denied the Archbishop of Canterbury had changed the Anglican Communion’s teachings on homosexuality.
Bishop Tengatenga defended Dr. Williams, who visits Malawi in October to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the church in Central Africa, explaining the archbishop’s private views were distinct from his public pronouncements. “The Anglican Church hasn’t changed, yes we are against homosexuality and Williams does not approve of the consecration of gay bishops,” he said. “The church’s position and an individual’s are two different things.”
The Anglican dioceses in Malawi remained “totally against homosexuality,” he told the Sunday Times.
The Harare press statement said it followed the province’s teaching that “Marriage is between a man and woman” and “should be monogamous, one man, one wife and one woman, one husband.”
“Any marriage institution outside this arrangement is not recognised, solemnised or blessed by the Diocese and any individuals indulging in such unions may be subject to various forms of Church censure, including ex-communication, once discovered.”
Dr. Gandiya said the breakaway bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga’s claims “to know of the existence of homosexuality within [the] ranks” of the church was specious. “Kunonga and his coterie of followers only started mentioning this after realising that they will never have easy access to Church funds and other significant resources, and so devised a scenario that prepared him for his departure from the Anglican Communion, using homosexuality as a smokescreen.”
Dr. Kunonga’s fixation with homosexuality caused Dr. Gandiya to wonder “whether it is not a problem haunting his own conscience, and by extension his newly formed religious institution. If this is the situation, Kunonga cannot continue to ignore it and it is time he addresses his own problem without dragging other people into it.”
“The CPCA is saddened that Kunonga has constantly fed wrong, malicious and misleading information to the structures of the Government of Zimbabwe, and the media, about the correct situation in the Anglican Church regarding homosexuality. What he has sought to do is to gain political mileage out of a non-issue among genuine Anglicans,” Dr. Gandiya said.
“Our position” he said “is clear that we do not tolerate homosexuality at all costs and we do not intend to compromise on this,” the bishop said noting that the arguments that “homosexuality has been accepted elsewhere within the Anglican Communion are irrelevantand have no place in our Zimbabwe context.”
Kunonga seizes hospital: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 8. September 20, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Godfrey Tawonezvi, Masvingo, Nolbert Kunonga
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Masvingo has come under legal assault from the breakaway bishop of Harare. With the backing of the police, Dr Nolbert Kunonga has evicted the clergy and staff of a mission hospital and school belonging to the neighbouring diocese.
In an interview with the state-run Harare Herald, Dr Kunonga said the seizure of the Daramombe Mission near Chivhu, was only the start as he planned on grabbing all of the assets of the Church of the Province of Central Africa in Zimbabwe.
In an email to the bishops of the province, the Bishop of Masvingo, the Rt Rev Godfrey Tawonezvi reported that a nurse on the staff of the Daramombe hospital had informed the director of the facility she recognized Dr Kunonga as the rightful owner of the church facility. The breakaway bishop had appointed her head nurse of the hospital, she said.
On 31 May, “the Bishop, Priest in Charge, and clinic staff had a meeting at the clinic to discuss some administrative issues.” Bishop Tawonezvi said. He spoke to the Kunonga nurse, telling her that “her services were no longer required at Daramombe mission. Our conversation with her did not even last a minute.” The Ministry of Health then transferred her to another facility.
The following day police arrested the hospital’s priest in charge and head nurse, and charged them with having made an “indecent assault” upon the Kunonga nurse. Bishop Tawonezvi was summoned to the police station on 3 June to answer questions about the alleged assault. And at the end of June the Ministry of Health rescinded its transfer order and sent the Kunonga nurse back to Daramombe.
Last week, the Rev Muyengwa Murombedzi, the Daramombe school headmaster, primary school headmistress and senior nursing staff were evicted from the mission hospital and school — many of whose furnishings were donated by the Diocese of Southwark. Acting upon a 4 August Supreme Court judgment that gave custody of the property to Bishop Kunonga, the Deputy Sheriff ordered the staff to leave.
Bishop Tawonezvi has gone to court to stop the evictions. He told the Herald: “They are using the Supreme Court judgment to destabilise the mission. I am the Bishop of Masvingo under which Daramombe falls and this judgment has nothing to do with our diocese. Kunonga wants to take advantage of the judgment to cause confusion.
“Kunonga and his thugs always resort to lies and criminal activities,” Bishop Tawonezvi wrote to the bishops of Central Africa. “We will continue to resist efforts by Kunonga to take over the Daramombe mission. We are grateful for your prayers.”
Evangelicals and the Prosperity Gospel: Get Religion Sept 17, 2011 September 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism.Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Edir Macedo, Joel Osteen, prosperity gospel
comments closed
Andrew Sullivan is right.
I thought my hand would wither when I wrote this, but I must confess he is right.
There has been a spate of interesting stories in the last week about the prosperity gospel. The Guardian has a nice piece on the indictment on fraud charges by Brazilian prosecutors of the king of the prosperity gospel preachers, Bishop Edir Macedor. And writing in The Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan’s Dish column discusses the existential mindset of the Republican Party. He offers his readers the ‘prosperity gospel’ as one explanation for its militant mood.
But let us first define our terms. What is the prosperity gospel?
In a 2006 Time Magazine piece entitled “Does God want you to be rich?”, David Van Biema and Jeff Chu offered an overview of the movement whose headliners include Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and Paul and Jan Crouch.
For several decades, a philosophy has been percolating in the 10 million–strong Pentecostal wing of Christianity that seems to turn the Gospels’ passage on its head: certainly, it allows, Christians should keep one eye on heaven. But the new good news is that God doesn’t want us to wait. Known (or vilified) under a variety of names–Word of Faith, Health and Wealth, Name It and Claim It, Prosperity Theology–its emphasis is on God’s promised generosity in this life and the ability of believers to claim it for themselves.
In a nutshell, it suggests that a God who loves you does not want you to be broke. Its signature verse could be John 10: 10: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” In a TIME poll, 17% of Christians surveyed said they considered themselves part of such a movement, while a full 61% believed that God wants people to be prosperous. And 31%–a far higher percentage than there are Pentecostals in America–agreed that if you give your money to God, God will bless you with more money.
In his piece entitled, “Republicanism as Religion“, Sullivan draws upon a web essay written by Mike Lofgren to argue the prosperity gospel movement controls the Republican Party:
..the GOP, deep down, is behaving as a religious movement, not as a political party, and a radical religious movement at that. Lofgren sees the “Prosperity Gospel” as a divine blessing for personal enrichment and minimal taxation (yes, that kind of Gospel is compatible with Rand, just not compatible with the actual Gospels)..
The essay continues with a political analysis of the GOP arguing that this new “religion has replaced all” of its prior beliefs, “reordered it, and imbued the entire political-economic-religious package with zeal. And the zealous never compromise.”
He closes with a warning that if the Republicans “defeat” Obama in 2012, this religious zealotry will lead to blood in the streets.
I fear we will no longer be participating in a civil conversation, however fraught, but in a civil war.
There has always been a épater le bourgeois quality to Sullivan’s work, and I do not find his political explanations persuasive. Nor will his description of the prosperity gospel as “idiotic” win him friends and influence people among the ranks of its devotees. But he is right to speak of the importance of this new gospel amongst Christians. From its American roots it has spread across the globe and is a powerful religious and social force in South America, Africa and South Korea.
The Christian Left and the Religious Right have largely rejected the movement. Scott Paeth of DePaul University called it a “truly mind-boggling perversion of the message of the Gospel, and in fact turns the entire notion of Christian love on its head. Whereas Augustine said that the essence of sin was the human person turned in upon him or herself, Osteen’s version of Christianity is all about turning inward on ourselves.”
For Evangelical theologian John Piper the movement is heretical. It is “another gospel”, not the Christian one.
Andrew Sullivan’s instincts are right, but he applies his analyses to the wrong field of study. Prosperity gospel practitioners like Osteen are relentlessly apolitical and avoid the hot button issues of the day. Simply put, its bad for their business.
Reporting on this phenomena has seen mixed results. This ABC news video is an example of the trepidation many reporters have when approaching the subject. Or, the ABC team may just be woefully ignorant of the topic they are seeking to address. ABC mentioned criticisms of the movement, but tossed Osteen a softball when asking him to respond or explain his work.
Oh, by the way, Osteen has a new book out: “Every Day a Friday: How to Be Happier 7 Days a Week.” This cringe inducing news story comes across as a six minute commercial for Osteen’s book, not a serious look at his church or this world-wide phenomenon.
The Guardian does a much better job with the prosperity gospel’s appearance in the news. Two articles by the British daily’s Rio correspondent examines the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God headed by Bishop Edir Macedo. They also show a growing awareness that the prosperity gospel cannot be pigeonholed as another manifestation of the evangelical right.
Last week the Guardian’s Tom Phillips wrote an article entitled Three leading members of one of Brazil’s most powerful churches have been accused of laundering millions in church donations and using worshippers’ money for personal gain.
The charges, unveiled on Monday by São Paulo’s public prosecutor, relate to 404m reals (£150m) allegedly obtained from mostly impoverished churchgoers by leaders at Brazil’s Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. ..the prosecutor behind the case, claimed followers were tricked into handing over money to the church through “false promises and threats that spiritual and economic assistance would only be bestowed upon those who made financial sacrifices for the church”.
Prosecutors claim that although the church claimed to have received around £1.85bn in donations between 2003 and 2006, the actual sum could be much higher.
The article gives a summary of the church’s teachings in a neutral tone, offers Macedo a word of response, and refers to a 2009 story by Phillips that reported on claims that donations were used to buy luxury goods and property. Being the Guardian, a cynic might have expected this statement:
The church’s preachers are also notorious for their open hostility towards Brazil’s gay community and African-Brazilian religions.
While I would have preferred this point to have been developed further to substantiate the claim, and would have questioned the “notorious” – “hostility” pairing, it is a fair statement. However, one can never tell how much a sub-editor has applied the scissors to a story and I am loathe to jump on omissions for that reason.
One difference between Phillips’ latest story, and his previous reporting on Macedo is the absence of the word “evangelical”. The lede sentence in his 2009 story begins with “the leader of one of Brazil’s largest evangelical churches” and also includes “evangelical” in the title. This latest story omits the word entirely. The move away from tagging prosperity gospel preachers as evangelicals can also be seen in the AP’s coverage of Macedo. While the AP’s English language story on this item includes the “evangelical” descriptor, its more detailed Spanish language story also omits the word from the body of its story.
Why does this matter? Because the prosperity gospel is not part of the evangelical movement nor does Macedo’s church claim to be evangelical. I applaud the increasing sophistication the Guardian and other quality papers have brought to reporting on this neo-Pentecostal movement. I hope others will soon catch on.
Anglican Unscripted, Sept 17, 2011 September 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV, Archbishop of Canterbury, Property Litigation, The Episcopal Church, Women Priests.Tags: Alzheimer's Disease
comments closed
Is the Archbishop of Canterbury preparing to move onto something else… perhaps move back into academia? In Episode 10, Kevin and Peter Ould discuss the rumors and facts surrounding this significant story from Lambeth. Today in history is another “where were you moments” in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Unscripted Hosts Kevin and George discuss September 16th, 1976 with the vote to permit women clergy and bishops in the Episcopal Church. They also hold Pat Robertson accountable on his marriage and Alzheimer’s proclamation. Allan Haley brings new revelations from his Investigative reporting on the Episcopal Church borrowing against money it already has… Yeah — you are going to have to watch to understand. Please email your questions and comments to AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com and visit us at http://Anglican.tv
Anti-Christian hate crime conference convened: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 7. September 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, EU, Persecution.comments closed
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk addresses the opening session of an OSCE meeting on combating hate crimes against Christians, Rome, 12 September 2011. (OSCE/Jens Eschenbaecher)
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Europe must do more to combat hate crimes against Christians, delegates told a Sept 12 human rights conference in Rome organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Hate crimes created a “climate of fear and suspicion” which had the “potential to create insecurity within and between communities, and instability both within and between OSCE States, the director of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Janez Lenarčič told the meeting.
“Hate crimes are a security issue, and may contribute to de-stabilising regional or even inter-state relations,” he said.
It was “indisputable that hate crimes against Christians occur in the OSCE region,” the director told the gathering of approximately 150 representatives of the OSCE’s 56 participating States, religious communities and non-governmental organizations.
According to information collected by ODIHR for its annual hate crimes report, there have been cases of desecration of places of worship, arson and other property damage, and attacks on worshippers and religious leaders.
“Such attacks instill fear, not just in the individuals they target directly, but also in the wider community, particularly where the Christian community in question belongs to a minority,” said Ambassador Lenarčič.
To be considered a hate crime, an act must have two components, he said. “There must be a criminal act targeting individuals or property,” and the “target of the offence, whether victim or property, is selected by the perpetrator who is guided by a bias motive and because of a real or perceived connection to a group – in this case, a religious group.”
Evaldas Ignatavičius, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, said constant attention is required to build religious acceptance and combat the corrosive spread of hate and discrimination against religious practices and beliefs.
“It requires an ongoing process of open reflection, improved education at all levels and public awareness building and legislative action if we are to stamp out this most insidious form of human rights violation,” he added
Among the speakers at the meeting were Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, and Massimo Introvigne, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on combating intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions.
The agenda for the gathering stated its purpose was “to provide a platform for experts and practitioners to discuss hate-motivated crimes and incidents against Christians in the OSCE area, in addition to sharing best practices in the area of prevention and response.”
Baptists cry foul over 9/11 Cathedral ceremony: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 7. September 19, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Washington.Tags: National Cathedral
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The 9/11 memorial service scheduled last Sunday for Washington’s National Cathedral turned into an ecumenical free-for-all after Baptist and Catholic leaders took offense at their exclusion from the ceremony.
“A Call to Compassion,” an interfaith prayer vigil held on 11 September, was to include President Barack Obama and the dean of the Cathedral, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, a rabbi, Buddhist nun and incarnate lama, a Hindu priest, the president of the Islamic Society of North America and a Muslim musician.
However, Fox News reported on 6 September that America’s largest Protestant denomination — the Southern Baptists — were incensed at their exclusion. “It’s not surprising,” said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. “There is a tragic intolerance toward Protestants and particularly toward evangelicals and I wish the president would refuse to speak unless it was more representative.
“I think it would send a very strong and very positive signal to the left-wing extremists in our country that the president ought not show up,” said Mr Page.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Fox the speakers chosen to address the nation did not represent America.
“Three-quarters of the American people identify as Christian and nearly a third of them are evangelical Christian,” Perkins said. “And yet, there is not a single evangelical on the programme.”
Richard Weinberg, the Cathedral’s director of communications, told Fox “the goal was to have interfaith representation.”
He explained that the “Cathedral itself is an Episcopal church and it stands to reason that our own clergy serve as Christian representatives,” adding that “diversity was first and foremost” a factor in the planning.
“We certainly aim to appeal to as many in the country as possible and feel that our events are not any one slice that could ever represent the entire country — but that we are doing our best commemorate the events as it fits with our mission,” Weinberg said.
Writing on his blog at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, Mgr Charles Pope stated the Episcopal Church’s decision to arrogate to itself the role as the representatives of Christendom was unwise. “If you ask me, and most churchgoing Catholics, if two clergy of a denomination that collectively supports abortions rights, homosexual marriage, and activity, euthanasia, and so forth can represent me, I’d say ‘No!’”
However, the hand of God appeared on 7 September to divert an ecumenical incident. A 500-ton crane removing rubble from the earthquake damaged cathedral fell over damaging three cars and two buildings. Herb Cottage, which houses the cathedral’s gift shop and Church House, an office block for diocesan officials were damaged in the accident.
The ceremony was subsequently moved to Washington’s Kennedy Center.
Archbishop was sexually abused: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 9. September 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church, Traditional Anglican Communion.comments closed
Archbishop John Hepworth
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Rape and abuse drove the Archbishop John Hepworth out of the Roman Catholic Church into the arms of the Anglican Communion. But a love for the priesthood and the Catholic Church has brought the leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion back into its fold 30 years later.
In an interview with the Weekend Australian, Archbishop John Hepworth detailed 12 years of sexual abuse from the age of 15 at the hands of two priests and one seminary student while he was a student and priest in the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide.
Archbishop Hepworth, who is the primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, spearheaded the drive for Anglican corporate reunion with Rome that has resulted in Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of the Anglican Ordinariate.
His revelations of abuse have prompted controversy in Australian Catholic circles, as the Archdiocese of Melbourne has offered its apologies and given compensation for the abuse suffered by Hepworth at the hands of one its priests, while the Archdiocese of Adelaide has been in possession of the complaint of abuse for four years but has not taken any action.
Breaking his public silence over the assaults, Archbishop Hepworth stated he “never wanted to leave” the Catholic Church, but “fled in fear” to England after his complaints of abuse were ignored by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
“The Church is full of sinners,” he said, “but it is God’s gift to the human race through Jesus Christ. … I have never lost the sense of vocation of being a priest.”
In 1960 Hepworth entered Adelaide’s St Francis Xavier Seminary when he was 15 years old. He was raped a month after he entered the minor seminary by an older seminarian, John Stockdale. Stockdale, who died at the age of 57 while visiting a gay sex club, threatened Hepworth, saying if he spoke of the assaults he would be expelled from the seminary.
After two years he was “passed on” to Fr Ronald Pickering, who continued the assaults. Pickering, who has since died, was acknowledged to be a sexual predator by the Archdiocese of Melbourne in 2002. Hepworth’s third abuser, who raped him during a trip to the beach, was not identified by the Weekend Australian and remains active in the ministry of the Diocese of Adelaide. His attacker attempted to silence Hepworth by seeking to confess his abuse to him, using the Seal of the Confessional to silence the young priest.
Ordained in 1968, Archbishop Hepworth said he took his concerns to diocesan officials in Adelaide, but they took no action. Auxiliary Bishop Philip Kennedy told the young priest that if he persisted in his complaints, he would “destroy” him, while Archbishop James Gleeson told Hepworth he would have to leave the diocese, if he persisted in pressing his accusations.
At that point, Fr Hepworth said he “fled” to England, and in 1972 took up work as a truck driver for Boots the Chemist. In 1976 Hepworth returned to Australia and was received by the Anglican Diocese of Ballarat, where he served until 1992 when he left to join what would become the Traditional Anglican Communion, becoming a bishop in 1996 and rising to primate in 2002.
In 2008, Archbishop Hepworth wrote to the Catholic Archbishops of Melbourne and Adelaide detailing the abuse he suffered. While Adelaide has so far not responded, last month Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart reported that a formal inquiry had substantiated the TAC primate’s charges.
The sexual abuse Archbishop Hepworth suffered at the hands of Melbourne priest Ronald Pickering was also coupled with gruesome blasphemy about the Virgin Mary, said the consultant psychiatrist’s report provided to the Melbourne Archdiocese’s Independent Commissioner for Sexual Abuse.
The effects of the abuse and blasphemies have imprinted themselves on his psyche, Archbishop Hepworth told the archdiocese’s consultant psychiatrist. “When I see a statue of Our Lady, that whole thing comes back and I can’t get rid of it.”
On 26 August Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart wrote to Archbishop Hepworth stating: “We cannot change what has happened … You may never be rid of the memories or the hurt … On behalf of the Catholic Church and personally, I apologise to you and to those around you for the wrongs and hurt you have suffered at the hands of Fr Ronald Pickering.”
School chaplain enters guilty plea to abuse charges: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 9. September 17, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Leslie Carter
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
A retired school chaplain has entered a guilty plea in the Harrow Crown Court to charges he sexually assaulted schoolboys.
The Rev Leslie Carter, 84, of Bath confessed to nine counts of indecent assault upon boys aged between nine and 12 dating back to 1957 while he served as chaplain of St George’s Grammar School in Cape Town and at Quainton Hall School in Harrow. Mr Carter had previously denied the 21 counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape brought by the prosecution, but entered guilty pleas to nine of the indecency charges after a jury had been sworn in for trial.
Prosecutor Justin Bearman told the Court Mr Carter abused his first victim during a school trip to the UK from South Africa. He later returned to the UK and took up the post of chaplain at Quainton Hall in 1968, where he assaulted a nine-year-old boy in 1974 and an 11-year-old boy in 1976. The allegations against the priest came to light in 2004 after his South African victim contacted the police in Britain, the court was told.
“That behaviour would take place in a variety of different places around the school including his own living quarters, in the school grounds, scout hut, and the church,” Mr Bearman said.
Mr Carter had “used his position of respect, his position as an Anglican priest and a schoolteacher to breach that trust in the most devastating way possible towards these three young men over an extensive period of time,” the prosecutor said.
Speaking from the bench, Judge Graham White told the defendant you have “pleaded guilty to what you know are very serious offences involving the sexual abuse of young boys who were in your charge. You abused your position of trust both as a priest and a teacher.”
The judged added, “I have to tell you that all sentencing options remain open and that a sentence of imprisonment is the most likely outcome.”
Schism looms for the Church of Ireland: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 16, 2011 p 6. September 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland.Tags: Alan Harper, gay marriage, Michael Burrows
comments closed
Bishop Michael Burrows
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Schism within the Church of Ireland could split the church between Ulster and the Republic of Ireland, church leaders fear, in the wake of revelations the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory permitted the Dean of Leithlin to register a same-sex civil union.
The Primate of All-Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh Dr. Alan Harper told the Sept 11 “Sunday Sequence” programme of BBC Radio Ulster he was “very, very concerned at the potential for division” within the church over homosexuality. He also conceded that clergy criticisms over a leadership “vacuum” among the bishops were “a fair comment in all sorts of ways.”
His remarks follow revelations published last week in the Belfast News Letter that the Dean of Leighlin, the Very Rev. Tom Gordon, had solemnized a civil union with his partner in July. Dean Gordon told the “Sunday Sequence” on Sept 2, he had notified Bishop Michael Burrows the ceremony would take place beforehand, and added that his “sexuality” was common knowledge in the Church of Ireland.
Dr. Harper said that while a change to church discipline had taken place in the Diocese of Cashel and Ossory, there had been no change in the Church of Ireland’s formal position on human sexuality, which teaches faithfulness in marriage and chastity in singleness.
In 2003 the bishops agreed to maintain the church’s historic teachings, whilst maintaining collegiality that respected the diversity of views of its members. Since that time, Britain and Ireland had introduced legislation permitting same-sex civil unions, and the General Synod endorsed the Anglican Covenant. The composition of the House of Bishops had also changed, he noted, necessitating further discussion.
“What we do not have is a broad consensus for change. There is a need for discussions, first in the House of Bishops and then in the General Synod,” Dr. Harper said, adding the bishops had “determined to revisit the discussions of 2003 in meetings this autumn,” he said.
The Archbishop declined to take a stand on the issue. His role as primate, he averred was to mediate the bishops’ forthcoming debate over human sexuality, and not pre-empt discussion by taking sides.
By acquiescing to the Very Rev. Tom Gordon’s civil partnership, Bishop Burrows had pre-empted debate, conservatives charged. The host of “Sunday Sequence”, Michael Crawley said the Archdeacon of Down, the Ven. Philip Paterson, had told him Bishop Burrows should resign.
The Anglican Chaplain to Queens University Belfast, the Rev. Barry Forde, told the BBC he was disappointed how quickly some had stressed the North/South divide over the issue. The problems had arisen because individuals, not dioceses, had acted outside of the church’s traditional norms. But he agreed “this is going to be very fractious.”
Canon Ian Poulton told the BBC he shared the concern over the bishop’s silence. “There has been a dearth of leadership … there is a vacuum of leadership at times. There was no leadership on economic issues. It is not just on sexual issues,” he said.
Acceptable prejudices: The Guardian and Catholic bashing September 16, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Roman Catholic Church.Tags: Guardian, press bias
comments closed
Crain’s New York Business reports the Guardian has set up shop in the US and is open for business. In a piece entitled “The British are coming: Guardian hits U.S.”, CNYB notes the British daily’s website “had more than 10 million unique visitors in the U.S. in August.” The head of the US operation, Janine Gibson, states their aim is “combine the Guardian’s internationalist, digital journalism with American voices and expertise.”
I am one of those 10 million visitors from the US and a daily reader of the newspaper’s website. At the outset of this post I should say I have been a freelance contributor to the Guardian and am a friend and reader of the paper’s religion reporter Riazat Butt.
While I do not share the Guardian’s pacifist, socialist, sandal-wearing, diversity worshiping, vegetarian, tree-hugging, anti-American weird-beard liberalism, I admire some of its writers. Stephen Bates, the paper’s former religion reporter, who prepares the Diary column is one of the best working journalists writing today. He is one of the few British reporters who “get religion” and “get” its place within the intellectual and cultural life of the United States, and whose work is always worth reading.
The Guardian’s stable includes a number of superior writers, but at times the newspaper lends itself to parody, mouthing the biases of the chattering classes. Take a look at “Bishop of Derry calls for end to celibacy in Catholic church” from its Ireland reporter.
The story is rather straight forward. The former Bishop of Derry Edward Daly has published his memoirs: A Troubled See, Memoirs of a Derry Bishop. Daly, who came to prominence on Bloody Sunday in 1972 when he was photographed waiving a white handkerchief as he escorted a wounded man to safety after troops opened fire on demonstrators, offered his views on several issues facing the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish Times reported Bishop Daly was not enamored with the Latin Mass, finding it “lifeless and somewhat meaningless” and believed the church should reform the way it selected its bishops, stating “the virtual absence of pastorally experienced clergy in positions of authority in the Irish church” helped inhibit renewal promised by Vatican II..41
And, the Irish Times reported he also had a word to say about celibacy.
I ask myself, more and more, why celibacy should be the great sacred and unyielding arbiter, the paradigm of diocesan priesthood? … (There) is certainly an important and enduring place for celibate priesthood. But I believe that there should also be a place in the modern Catholic Church for a married priesthood and for men who do not wish to commit themselves to celibacy.
So that’s the story. Retired bishop with colorful past questions mandatory celibacy. Let’s see what the Guardian team elects to do with this.
It opens with a flourish.
On Bloody Sunday in 1972 Father Edward Daly faced down the Parachute Regiment responsible for shooting dead 13 unarmed Derry civilians, waving just a white handkerchief as he protected the wounded from the army’s bullets in the Bogside. Now 39 years later the retired Bishop of Derry is confronting an even more powerful force than the Paras: the Vatican.
Dr. Daly, who was the Bishop of Derry for 20 years during the Troubles, has become the first senior Irish Catholic cleric to call for an end to celibacy in the church. His intervention in the debate over whether priests should be allowed to marry is highly significant because he is still one of the most respected figures in the Irish Catholic church at a time when faith in the institution has been shattered by the paedophile scandals involving clergy.
Challenging centuries of Catholic theocracy, Daly has said that allowing the clergy to marry would solve some of the church’s problems.
Crusading hero priest v. the evil Vatican curia, in other words. How’s that for telegraphing your point of view. Is the bishop really calling for an end to celibacy? All priests must marry? Of course not. He is calling for an end to compulsory celibacy.
Is he the first? Of course not. Off the top of my head I can recall the furore caused by the Bishop of Ferns, Brendan Comiskey, in 1995 when he called for a debate on compulsory celibacy. And there was Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe — but Killaloe is in the back of beyond in Co. Clare so it may not count. I will grant that Bishop Daly would have been the first to call for an “end to celibacy.” But since he did not actually say that, I don’t believe it is a point theGuardian might want to press. And it is nice to see the paedophile angle worked in. Can’t have a Roman Catholic story without the perverts can we.
And what should we make of the use of the word “theocracy”? A theocracy is a church run state like the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government in exile or Muslim countries where Sharia law controls civil law or the Vatican City State.
So, is the Guardian suggesting that Ireland is priest-ridden island under the wicked rule of the Whore of Babylon? I’m prone to flashbacks, (the colors, the colors) and these opening paragraphs took me in my mind to Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow for a Rangers – Celtics football (soccer) game. The subtlety of this article comes close to that of a Rangers fan in full roar.
The 1200-word piece, long for a British news story, lays out what the bishop wrote in his book and shares anecdotes from his life. When the article turns back to history, offering context for the bishop’s views, we find more problems.
Catholic priests have been unable to marry since the Gregorian reforms in the 11th century made celibacy compulsory. Historians have contended that the move was partly for spiritual reasons, but was mainly to ensure estates held by clerics would pass back to the church upon their deaths rather than to offspring.
Which historians say this? What about the Catholic version which teaches that the Church’s obligation of celibacy goes back to the apostles in an ‘unbroken’ line. And that the motivation for celibacy was the closer following of Jesus Christ, who required his apostles to leave wife and family, to become “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom”.
While attempting to pile on further, the Guardian fumbles the ball. Take these passages on Anglicans going to Rome.
However, in recent years Pope Benedict XVI has made allowances for married Anglican ministers to transfer to the Catholic church after a number made the move in protest at controversial Anglican issues including the ordination of women priests, and acceptance of ministers in same-sex relationships. …
The other development has been the welcoming into the Catholic church of traditionalist Anglicans, unable to reconcile their faith with the ordination of women or the consecration of openly gay bishops. Their incorporation has been made easier since October 2009 when Benedict issued a controversial ordinance allowing them to retain much of their identity, liturgy and pastoral arrangements.
Anglican clergy who have entered the Catholic Church and have sought to be re-ordained as Catholic priests (a move introduced by John Paul II in 1980) may have been horrified by Anglican events of recent years, but they became Catholics because they believed the truth claims of the Catholic Church. Gay bishops and blessings, women clergy and inclusive language liturgies may well have sharpened the mind, but the Catholic Church is not a girl picked up on the rebound from a bad break up. The Guardian may well think the Roman option was a knee jerk response to the innovations of recent times, but I doubt any of those who crossed the Tiber would make this claim (or if Rome would have re-ordained them if this was their motivation.)
But I digress. Back to the story. Try these samples:
The debate over whether to admit married men to the priesthood, however, is one not even the pope can stifle.
Stifle? How? When? Come on.
..the continuing sex abuse scandal. .. The first senior figure to argue the case for a link between an unmarried priesthood and sex abuse was the bishop of Hamburg, Hans-Jochen Jaschke, who in March 2010 told a newspaper interviewer a “celibate lifestyle can attract people who have an abnormal sexuality”.
Is there a link between the “celibate lifestyle” and clergy sexual abuse? If so, show us. How about a contrary view articulated in a study commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that linked child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the ’60s and ’70s to the feminist movement, a ‘singles culture’ and divorce. It may strain the credulity of the typical Guardian reader to think the virtues celebrated by the newspaper are vices, but it should have received a nod none the less.
And let us not forget to take a gratuitous shot at the pope.
In 1970, the decline in priesthood vocations persuaded nine leading theologians to sign a memorandum declaring that the Catholic leadership “quite simply has a responsibility to take up certain modifications” to the celibacy rule. Extracts from the document were reprinted in January. Not least because one of the signatories was the then Joseph Ratzinger, now pope Benedict.
Is Benedict a hypocrite? What is unsaid is that according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1970 Karl Rahner, Walter Kasper, Karl Lehman, Joseph Ratzinger along with five other theologians wrote to the German Bishops’ Conference asking that the requirement that all priests in the Latin Church to be celibate should be reconsidered in the light of the “new historical and social conditions” unfolding in Europe and North America. The full text of the document has not been released and has not been verified. However, from what has so far been printed the nine asked that the question be discussed, which is different from calling for it to be rejected.
Coming soon after the charge the Pope was stifling debate, the lack of balance in this charge of papal mendacity is troublesome and to my mind speaks to the failings of this article, and the difference between good and bad journalism.
In his 1946 essay, “Why I Write”, George Orwell stated, “every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism.” I make the same claim for work of journalists whom I admire. Though Stalinism and Fascism no longer have a place in Western intellectual life, the cant, hypocrisy and moral dishonesty they represented remain part of our intellectual and philosophical lives—and it is here—in challenging the orthodoxies of left and right—that one can find the best Guardian reporting.
Does this article meet this standard? No. It is riddled with errors, condescending towards it subject, and is entirely predictable.
That unfashionable poet, Edna St Vincent Millay, wrote in her “Dirge Without Music”:
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
A journalist who takes his craft seriously, who is not resigned to the world around him, who writes with moral purpose (but without moralizing) prepares stories that are a joy to read. This article is not one of those stories.
Cry for help from Harare: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 8. September 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Harare, Nolbert Kunonga
comments closed
Bishop Chad Gandiya
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Harare has sent a distress signal to supporters in the West following the arrest of one of his clergymen on what he says are trumped up charges of theft.
Dr Chad Gandiya’s 6 September email, entitled “SOS – Prayer”, gives an “urgent prayer request for the clergy of the Diocese of Harare CPCA and in particular for the Rev Julius Zimbudzana and his family.”
“As I write this email Fr Julius, our priest at St Mary’s Parish in Highlands, Harare is in police custody having been arrested this morning. The charge is that of theft of church property worth US$1.5 million!!!!! This is very strange indeed as no parish in our diocese (perhaps the exception is the Cathedral Parish) has properties worth that much. He has been refused bail. The police claim they have clear instructions not to release him,” the Bishop wrote.
Last month the Diocese filed an appeal against the order of Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku giving breakaway bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga custody of the diocesan properties. On 4 August, Chief Justice Chidyausiku signed an order in chambers permitting the Diocese of Harare to maintain its lawsuit defending its ownership of the properties. However, the judge also ordered that pending a final ruling, custody of the buildings would remain with Dr Kunonga’s faction.
While the order attempted to preserve the status quo, where the diocese’s churches were held by Dr Kunonga, the ruling was used by Dr Kunonga to evict clergy from their vicarages — which had so far remained under the control of the Anglican Church.
On 24 August Dr Gandiya reported that Dr Kunonga’s henchmen were forcibly evicting clergy from their livings. “I have just spoken with our priest at St Matthew’s Church in Chinhoyi a few minutes ago who informed me that he had just come from hospital where he was attended to by a doctor on duty because of beatings in the head he received early this evening from Kunonga’s priest and a thug,” the Bishop wrote.
The Rev Jonah Mudowaya was beaten after he “refused to vacate the church house. He has made a report of the incident to the Chinhoyi police. This is an alarming development taking place because of the latest interim judgment given by the Chief Justice.
“Elsewhere in places like Highfield, Kunonga’s priests broke into church houses. In other places they have gone in the company of the police in order to intimidate our priests into vacating the houses but our priests have insisted on them producing court eviction orders and the presence of messengers of Court and thankfully the police have not forced the evictions,” Bishop Gandiya said.
The tempo of violence and intimidation has increased, Dr Gandiya wrote on 6 September. “Kunonga’s priests are after whatever property we have. Our lawyers are busy trying to stop this madness.
“My priests are greatly traumatised by these sad developments,” the Bishop said, adding that he had “spent all afternoon trying to see Fr Julius. We are praying that he is brought before the court tomorrow in the hope that justice will be done. Please pray with us.”
First clergy same-sex union for Ireland: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 7. September 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Ireland.Tags: gay marriage
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Dean of Leighlin Cathedral in the Diocese of Cashel & Ossory has become the first serving Church of Ireland clergyman to enter a same-sex civil partnership in the Republic of Ireland.
The public announcement of the Dean’s same-sex civil partnership and his Bishop’s apparent support for the move is likely to pitch the Church of Ireland into the same battle that has torn apart the Episcopal Church and has the potential to divide the Irish church, sources tell CEN.
In an interview with BBC Ulster, the Very Rev Tom Gordon stated he and his partner held the ceremony in a registry office in July. Unlike the Church of England, which requires clergy who have entered same-sex civil partnerships to remain celibate, the Church of Ireland has not taken a position on the matter.
However Dean Gordon said his bishop, the Rt Rev Michael Burrows knew of his domestic arrangements and had been informed before the ceremony that it would take place.
Ireland’s Civil Partnership Act came into effect on 1 January 2011, and the first registered partnership took place on 7 February 2011. The tax code was also amended in July 2011 under the Finance (No. 3) to create parity in taxation mattes between civil partnerships and marriage.
Canon Charles Kenny of Changing Attitude Ireland said Dean Gordon’s civil partnership was “evidence of the growing visibility and acceptance of same-sex couples within the Church of Ireland.”
However, the chairman of the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy, the Rev Trevor Johnston, said he was perturbed by the pastoral and theological implications of this action — and the apparent acquiescence by the church’s hierarchy.
“I think there is distress that this has happened and great sorrow because it will be difficult to biblically pastor those who genuinely struggle with the issue of same-sex relationships because of a mixed message,” he told the Belfast Newsletter.
Mr Johnston, the director of Crosslinks Ireland, said it was “very, very difficult” to see how this issue would not bring the Church of Ireland to blows. “We want to hear from the bishops of the Church of Ireland on this matter and we call people to hear again and apply the Bible’s teaching on the area of human sexuality, which is that marriage is the only context for sexual expression,” he said.
A statement from the Church of Ireland Evangelical Fellowship, the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy, New Wine (Ireland) and Reform Ireland said: “If the orthodox view of marriage and sexuality is allowed to be shattered by the actions of Dean Gordon and others then it is difficult to see how a respectful fellowship can be maintained.”
Australian dioceses to be consolidated: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 7. September 15, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Bathurst, Canberra & Goulburn, Riverina
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Canberra & Goulburn has agreed to a merger of its administrative offices with those of the rural dioceses of Bathurst and Riverina.
The rationalisation agreement comes amidst declining revenues and attendance among the three dioceses, but builds upon a nine-year-old covenant of support endorsed by the dioceses that cover almost three-quarters of New South Wales.
Meeting in Goulburn on 3 September the Canberra synod agreed to the proposal that would merge the three dioceses’ administrative apparatus, property and financial management services.
Bishop Stuart Robinson of Canberra told the synod the consolidation plan was not a merger.
“What we are wanting to do is coalesce our resources. It is an administration procedure that enables us to work more closely together to de-centralise various aspects of the different ministries we operate,” he said.
“But it certainly is not a merger of the dioceses. What will take place if this arrangement moves forward will be three sovereign diocese operating in an independent fashion.”
The Bishop of Bathurst, the Rt Rev Richard Hurford explained that people in the pews would see no changes. However, the depressed rural economy, ageing congregations and declining revenues dictated a change in operations, the Bishop said.
In a letter to his Diocese, Bishop Hurford wrote “For a number of years there has been an awareness that the accumulating debt burden at the schools was becoming unsustainable. I profoundly regret that this matter has not been addressed adequately in the past few years and we must now face some very tough decisions.
“This matter requires urgent action. If we, as the diocese, do not implement a realistic recovery plan this year we will significantly undermine our ability to be part of God’s mission.”
In September 2003, Bathurst, Riverina and Canberra & Goulburn endorsed a ‘Tri-Diocesan Covenant’. The document stated the three dioceses acknowledged a common history and tradition and had entered into covenant not only for their own sakes or for the urgency of the Gospel imperative in their midst, but also “for the sake of the wider Church in Australia.”
The Covenant group has met every three months to coordinate selection, training and professional development of clergy, professional standards protocols and Child Protection policies, clergy deployment, church schools, indigenous ministry, and the operations of Anglicare.
Armenian Genocide and modern memory: Get Religion Sept 14, 2011 September 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Armenian Apostolic, Get Religion.Tags: Daily Hurriyet, genocide, Radio Free Europe, Today's Zaman
comments closed
First printed in Get Religion
The Daily Beast, a news and opinion website published by Tina Brown in conjunction with Newsweek magazine, has weighed in on the diplomatic spat between Israel and Turkey. In a piece entitled “The Erdogan Doctrine”, columnist Owen Matthews argues President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Party have been unfairly characterized as villainous Islamist thugs. They have actually sought to build bridges with Turkey’s minority faiths, Matthews argues.
Yet the notion of Erdogan as a Jew-hating jihadi doesn’t really fit. Just before the current standoff, Erdogan sat down to dinner with the leaders of Turkey’s religious minorities, including the Chief Rabbi of Istanbul, and promised to return thousands of properties the Turkish state had confiscated from Christians and Jews in the past century. He also made a point of praising the “vast diversity of the people that have peacefully coexisted” in Istanbul. “In this city the [Muslim] call to prayer and church bells sound together,” said Erdogan. “Mosques, churches, and synagogues have stood side by side on the same street for centuries.”
The Daily Beast is also somewhat overgenerous in describing what Erdogan has offered: only the properties of Christian and Jewish institutions seized since 1936 are under discussion. Neither the property of individual Christians and Jews confiscated by the state nor the wholesale expropriations of the 1920’s are being reviewed.
The Daily Beast also uncritically relates Erdogan’s words of religious peace and harmony .. queue the video .. without offering context. The prime minister is able to speak of religious harmony because Turkey’s religious minorities are all but extinct. In the home city of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople it would have been just as easy for Erdogan to sit down to dine with all of the city’s remaining Orthodox Christians as with its minority religious leaders. An op-ed in The Hill, “Religious Freedom for Turkey?” penned by members of US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is less sanguine about the prospects for Christians, Jews, and members of minority Muslim sects, especially the Alawites than The Daily Beast.
Turkey’s Christian minority has dwindled to just 0.15 percent of the country. In the words of one church leader, it is an “endangered species.” In past centuries, violence exacted a horrific toll on Turkey’s Christians and their churches. This provides a frightening context and familiar continuity to a number of recent high-profile murders by ultranationalists.
Turkey’s Jewish community also fears a reprise of past violence, such as the 2003 al Qaeda-linked Istanbul synagogue bombings. Societal anti-Semitism has been fueled in recent years by Erdogan’s rhetoric against Israel’s activity in the Middle East and by negative portrayals in Turkey’s state-run media.
Today, however, it is the state’s dense web of regulations that most threatens Turkey’s religious minorities.
And this brings me to the articles under examination. The English-language editions of Turkey’s two major daily newspapers, the Hürriyet Daily News and Today’s Zaman, offer stories on the re-opening an ancient Armenian church located on an island on Lake Van in Eastern Turkey. The Hürriyet Daily News has “Historical Armenian church hosts service” from the Anatolia News Agency, the Turkish state wire service, while Today’s Zaman prepared an in-house version entitled “Armenians hold second religious ceremony at Akdamar church.”
Both pieces present a straight forward if slight account of the festivities. The Church of the Holy Cross, a tenth century Armenian Apostolic Church located on Akdamar Island in Lake Van, hosted its second religious service since it was renovated in 2007. Between 2000-3000 attended the service and the reports note the island drew 30,000 tourists in 2010 (or are they pilgrims?) after the Turkish government reopened the building as a museum.
Where things go wrong is when the Turkish correspondents attempt to give some historical context to the story. The Hürriyet Daily News states:
The church remained as part of a monastic complex until the beginning of the 20th century. It was abandoned during World War I due to fighting along the Russian border and was left in a bad condition for many years.
While Today’s Zaman notes:
The Armenian Church of the Holy Cross was a monastic complex until 1920s, but deteriorated in condition after being abandoned during World War I. Upon a proposal by the Governor’s Office of Van and approval of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the church is expected to now host annual religious services.
Armenians who lived in this province, located on the eastern shore of Lake Van and in eastern Anatolia, were deported by Ottoman forces in 1915. Armenians say 1.5 million Armenians were killed during a systematic campaign in eastern Anatolia, while Turkey strongly rejects the claims of genocide, saying the killings came as the Ottoman Empire was trying to quell civil strife and that Muslim Turks were also killed in the conflict. There are only around 60,000 Armenians left living in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul.
Yes, the Church of the Holy Cross was abandoned during World War I. The reason why it was abandoned was because the Turkish Army sacked the monastery, killed the monks and drove off, or murdered, the Armenian population in the region. Today’s Zaman makes note of the Armenian genocide, but states it is a contested point in history.
I very much doubt the heavy hand of the censor massaged these passages. The Daily Hurriet is the principle opposition newspaper, while Today’s Zaman backs the Islamist government. What we see here is a loss of memory. The genocide is not mentioned because its memory has not been preserved in Turkey.
Journalism is a craft, a learned trade that has a pragmatic and moral end. It informs while also educates. If the press does not speak the truth about the past, no matter how unpalatable this past may be to nationalistic or religious sensibilities, it fails in its mission.
The bottom line: The absence of the Armenian Genocide from this story, whether through ignorance, accident or design, means that these articles fail the test of good journalism.
In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel wrote: “That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”
Buildings may survive, but memory of peoples fades away. A free press should not be an accomplice.
Nota bene: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Yerevan bureau filed a report that fills in the blanks. “Thousands Attend Armenian Church Mass In Turkey”
Sudanese bishop seeks asylum in the US: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 8. September 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church of the Sudan.Tags: Andudu Adam Elnail, South Kordofan
comments closed
Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail at the UN
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Kadugli in Sudan’s South Kordofan province has applied for political asylum in the United States.
The Rt Rev Andudu Adam Elnail’s application for sanctuary comes amidst a renewed outbreak of fighting on the border between North and South Sudan. On 5 September, the IRIN news agency reported that fighting had broken out between troops of the Khartoum government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in the Blue Nile state bordering South Sudan and Ethiopia.
An estimated 20,000 refugees have crossed into Ethiopia, the UN reports, with more taking refuge in the countryside. Formed as the northern branch of South Sudan’s ruling political party, the SPLM-N took control of the Blue Nile State with the election of Malik Aggar as governor. However, Aggar, a former military commander in the SPLM’s armed wing during the 1983-2005 civil war, has since been removed from office by the Khartoum government.
IRIN reports that on 4 September, Khartoum’s ruling National Congress Party banned the SPLM-N and arrested many of its members. SAF spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad called Aggar a “rebel” and claimed the SPLM-N had been planning attacks on SAF bases.
In the neighbouring state of South Kordofan, where the SAF and SPLM-N have been at war since June, almost 200,000 people have been forced from their homes. On 30 August, Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said “unless there is an immediate stop to the fighting, and humanitarian organizations are granted immediate and unhindered independent access throughout South Kordofan, people in many parts of the state face potentially catastrophic levels of malnutrition and mortality.”
In an open letter published in the Huffington Post, Bishop Elnail’s US attorney said the Khartoum government was waging a war of extermination against the Nuba people of South Kordofan.
“Khartoum historically discriminated against the Nuba, prompting them to align with Southerners and their revolutionary party, the [SPLM], during Sudan’s civil war. Under the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Nuba were promised a free election, followed by a consultation with their elected leaders. This was supposed to be a channel for them to raise grievances and discuss their political future.
“After years of delay, South Kordofan’s gubernatorial election was held in May amid political tensions between the NCP and SPLM.
“Violence quickly erupted. Soon the UN mission reported that the NCP’s military wing had committed major human rights atrocities against the Nuba, including targeted killings, attacks on churches and dwellings and indiscriminate aerial bombardments.”
Bishop Elnail and other Nuba leaders sympathetic to the SPLM have been targeted for death by the Khartoum government, said his attorney Arjun Sethi.
SA church not heretical: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 8. September 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Marriage.Tags: gay marriage
comments closed
Southern African House of Bishops
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
There has been no change to the Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s (ACSA) teaching on human sexuality, a press release from the Provincial Executive Office has confirmed.
The announcement confirming the Southern African church’s fealty to traditional moral teachings comes shortly before the bishops and provincial standing committee debate pastoral guidelines for Anglicans in civil gay marriages—and as the Church comes under attack for heresy.
“ACSA remains committed to upholding the moratoria of the Anglican Communion on the ordination of persons living in a same gender unions to the episcopate; the blessing of same-sex unions; and cross-border incursions by bishops. Similarly, our Church has affirmed that partnership between two persons of the same sex cannot be regarded as a marriage in the eyes of God. Accordingly, our clergy are not permitted to conduct or bless such unions; nor are they permitted to enter into such unions while they remain in licensed ministry,” the 5 September statement said.
The clarification of the Church’s stance on gay bishops and blessings came in response to an “Anathema” pronounced against by the Church by the Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, which accused South African Anglicans of heresy.
The ACSA provincial office noted this church was a schismatic group that had broken off from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, an Eastern Rite Catholic Church under the jurisdiction of the Pope. It noted this group had also issued anathemas against Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, President Barack Obama and “some 20 or so Anglican, Lutheran and other Protestant Churches alongside our own!”
However, the accusations of abandoning church teaching on human sexuality were “riddled with distortions and untruths,” the ACSA provincial office noted.
The ACSA’s discussion of gay civil unions was not a move to affirm the innovation but a pastoral response that needed to be seen in the “context that we are currently exploring appropriate Guidelines to respond to the changing pastoral realities that have followed the Government of South Africa’s introduction of Civil Unions between people of the same gender.”
In his 30 August pastoral letter to the province, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba stated the forthcoming provincial standing committee and Synod of Bishops meetings would address the Pastoral Guidelines question. “Let me underline that this document is not directly about the continuing debate around human sexuality,” the Archbishop said. It sought to affirm the Anglican moratoria on gay bishops and blessings as well as focus “on the human and pastoral realities that we inevitably face in parishes following South Africa’s new legislation.”
He also noted that an advocate and opponent of changing the Church’s teaching on human sexuality would be present at these meetings. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the United States and Archbishop Ian Ernest of the Indian Ocean would join the bishops’ meeting and share their views on these issues.
It is unlikely however that the South African bishops will be able to move forward on the pastoral guidelines, one bishop — who asked not to be named — told CEN.
At the close of their 7-12 February, 2011 meeting in Natal, the Southern African bishops deferred taking action on adopting guidelines for the blessing of same-sex unions, citing legal difficulties and theological divisions within their ranks.
A draft document entitled “Pastoral Guidelines in Response to Civil Unions” was reviewed by the bishops at their September 2010 meeting and distributed to the dioceses. The February 2011 meeting, however, stated the bishops were not able to approve the document. “It is difficult to give blanket guidelines [on same-sex blessings] because the position is starkly at variance in the legal systems of the seven countries where we work,” the bishops said in February.
“We continue to work on creating guidelines in several areas of difficulty raised by the issue of civil unions,” the bishops said. However, the dynamics within the Synod of Bishops have not changed since February, CEN was told, and it is unlikely a document would garner support at this time.
Martial law in Trinidad: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 6. September 14, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies, Crime.Tags: Barbados, Trinidad
comments closed
Kamla Persad-Bissessar
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Crime was the greatest scourge facing the West Indies today, the Archdeacon of Barbados told the island nation’s legal community at a ‘Red Mass’ marking the start of the legal year and must be countered by a national dialogue on its moral and social causes.
Archdeacon Eric Lynch’s Sept 5 call for action came one day after neighboring Trinidad & Tobago held a rare Sunday sitting of Parliament, which voted to extend the country’s state of emergency imposed last month to battle the Caribbean country’s criminal gangs.
Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told Parliament the state of emergency has “worked” and prevented “a criminal uprising of untold proportions.”
The two-island nation is under an 11 p.m to 4 a.m. curfew and the security services have been given the authority to search suspects and property without a warrant. The army has also joined the police in patrolling high crime areas. The prime minister told Parliament the state of emergency had greatly reduced serious crime and resulted in 1,356 arrests as of Sept 4, including 33 homicide arrests.
Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday said his party opposed the state of emergency, warning that if it failed “then the criminals have won and you have played your trumps.”
Martial law was a disproportionate response to the Trinidad crime wave, Mr. Panday said, which has spawned 280 murders this year, including 11 deaths over the weekend of Aug 20-21.
In his sermon at Barbados’ St Mary’s Church, Archdeacon Lynch said sin and a materialistic culture were the cause of the West Indian criminal culture. Taking back society from criminals was a two-pronged project—good policing and the moral regeneration of souls, the archdeacon said.
Prosperity Gospel is a false gospel, Nigerian archbishop warns: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 6. September 12, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of Nigeria.Tags: Nicholas Okoh, prosperity gospel
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The ‘prosperity gospel’ that equates material blessings with spiritual holiness is a false gospel and a corruption of Jesus’ teaching, the Archbishop of Nigeria said last month in an interview with an African website.
An interview with Sahara Reporters published on 21 August, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh stated that “what is being presented as prosperity gospel, if not properly defined, can mislead innocent people. More so in a society that already has its values devalued, we could have a moral failure in society.”
Arising from the Wesleyan holiness movement, the prosperity gospel is subset of the pentecostal- charismatic movement. Its theological roots can be found in Wesley’s doctrine of entire sanctification, Florida-based Pentecostal scholar Charlie J Ray notes, coupled with teachings drawn from Christian Science and the “Word of Faith” movement.
Wesley taught that entire sanctification was a gradual process that culminated in a state of sinless perfection or entire sanctification. This was updated by the ‘Holiness Movement’ of the 19th Century that held that an instantaneous experience of entire sanctification could be achieved by the believer. The prosperity gospel builds upon these beliefs coupled with teachings taking from Christian Science, Ray notes. However he believes its reliance upon experience and personal revelation over Scripture has led to a movement that “is really a different gospel and completely foreign to biblical theology.”
Nigeria has become the epicentre of the prosperity gospel movement in Africa, with its leaders planting churches across the continent. However, the spread of prosperity gospel mega-churches with flamboyant leaders flaunting their wealth as a sign of God’s favour has caused a backlash from the established churches. In his book Foxes in the Vineyard, Insights into the Nigerian Pentecostal Revival, Sean Akinrele quotes Bishop Mike Okonkwo, former president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), as saying that “money has sadly become the yardstick for success in the Church.”
“Prosperity messages have therefore taken centre stage of most preaching at the expense of full gospel messages. This has degenerated to the extent that people now come to church primarily to get rich outside the richness in their souls. Pastors, too, have cashed in on the gullibility of unsuspecting members as symbolism in oil, mantle, honey, palm-leaves, sprinkling of blood, and other mediums are now evolved to build the faith of the people unto materialism,” Bishop Okonkwo wrote.
In his interview with Sahara Reporters, Archbishop Okoh stated “whether you talk about political parties, the church or the people there is a moral failure. The people are now uncomfortable with the kind of affluence that is canvassed in the name of God. Many people commit crimes now to acquire wealth so that people do not say God has not blessed them.”
Archbishop Okoh stated that he believed the “prosperity gospel is a half truth. In the sense that God is the owner of all wealth as Psalm 24 tells us. The oil wealth Nigeria has is God’s. In every sense God is rich because everything belongs to him.
“But the scriptures also say that we will always have the poor with us. So it looks like a mirage trying to organize the world without a poor man. We must realize that money is not gospel or faith,” he said.
Jesus warned “that the life of a person does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. So while talking about God being rich and that his children too should be rich it must be properly presented to avoid confusing the innocent because if it is wrongly presented it can lead people astray,” he noted.
However, Archbishop Okoh added that “poverty is not a blessing” either. What the church teaches is that from our “legitimate labour and hard work” we can “earn income so we can give to others who do not have. The essence of Christian labour is to provide for yourself and to have surplus to give to those who do not have.”
The archbishop stated that while “riches are from God and they are meant for his children” we should not “deceive ourselves that everybody who has wealth is righteous or approved by God. Or that if you go to church that in six months you must ride a Mercedes Benz. That kind of preaching is misleading.”
The way to combat the pernicious influence of the prosperity gospel is through sound biblical exposition in preaching and scholarship for the clergy, Nigerian church leaders tell CEN. From 13-17 June the Langham Preaching programme held an expository preaching conference for Nigerian pastors in Owerri and the errors of the prosperity gospel were one of the meetings key themes.
The Rev Emeka Egbo, the Langham Preaching programme Nigeria coordinator, told the 128 clergy in attendance the “the root of the prosperity gospel is to say the Bible is all about me, me, me. We want to say the Bible is about God, God, God.”
Santa Muerte redux: Get Religion, Sept 12, 2011 September 12, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism.Tags: Santa Muerta
comments closed
First published in Get Religion.
You don’t need to turn to the majors for examples of fine religion reporting. There are talented folk among the editors and writers in America’s small town newspapers doing great work, and Jason Pitzl-Waters, who blogs at The Wild Hunt, has drawn my attention to one such story.
Take a look at a story in the McAllen, Texas newspaper The Monitor entitled “Stash-house Faith: Local authorities note rise in signs of drug traffickers’ mysticism.”
General Assignment reporter Ildefonso Ortiz has done a great job developing the religion angle of a story about the Santa Muerte cult and Mexican drug gangs. His work stands in sharp contrast to an item in the Daily Telegraph I wrote about last week in Get Religion.
Thus, having written how not to do something at the expense of the Telegraph, let me point to the merits of The Monitor piece.
Ortiz opens by reporting that police are “finding more and more items related to the Santa Muerte — and to other forms of witchcraft — as they work narcotics operations.”
He develops the story, quoting Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño as saying: “Drug smugglers erect these altars to some kind of saint or deity, typically to the Santa Muerte or to Malverde, for protection from police or from rival groups.”
The article then gives an explanation of the cult, offering the views of an expert in the field.
The belief in magical or supernatural entities that provide protection is deeply rooted in the Latino culture, said Antonio Zavaleta, an anthropologist who has published various books on belief systems and the occult.
The Latino culture has a deeply rooted belief in saints who are believed to have certain powers over certain situations, Zavaleta said. The belief in witchcraft also has been present in the Mexican culture for generations, and that belief is passed down from parent to child.
Belief in the Santa Muerte — though different from witchcraft — is passed down similarly, Zavaleta said.
“Witchcraft is a practice where someone goes to a practitioner or a witch to cast a spell in favor of something or against something else, such as law enforcement, in this case,” he said.
Believers will call on a saint when they need help for a specific situation, Zavaleta said. St. Jude, for example, is believed to offer assistance in difficult causes.
The Santa Muerte falls into the category of Folk Saints, which — despite a devout following — are not accepted by the Catholic Church.
“The belief in the Santa Muerte is pretty recent,” Zavaleta said. “It began about 30 years or so” ago before moving north to the border.
Ortiz then ties Santa Muerte back into the Mexican drug cartels stating that in the late ’80s one gang began dabbling in the occult, seeking mystical protection from the police and other gangs. The Monitor also addresses sociological questions with references to expert opinion, rather than assumptions.
Although local authorities are finding more altars and other witchcraft paraphernalia, Zavaleta’s research points less to an increase in believers and more to a relocation of them.
As more and more immigrants move to the Rio Grande Valley and further north, they bring their beliefs along with them. Drug smugglers likewise bring their practices along as they move north to further their business, Zavaleta said.
The story closes by returning to the local scene, ending with a colorful quote from the sheriff.
While the belief in the supernatural smugglers has taken various forms in the Valley — whether witchcraft, Santa Muerte or Palo Mayombe — authorities have one message for believers.
“Obviously it doesn’t’ work,” Treviño said.
Now the Telegraph story was published in the news blog section. It wasn’t quite a news article nor was it an opinion piece, and it perhaps is unfair of me to compare that story to this. Nevertheless (a nice word I like to use when clearing my throat before going for the kill) here is the bottom line: This is a nicely polished gem that neatly melds a religion story with a crime story. Straight forward solid reporting. Kudos to The Monitor and Ildefonso Ortiz.
Beirut flip-flop flap: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 9. September 12, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Blasphemy Laws, Lebanon
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
A flap over Halloween-themed footwear has prompted cries of blasphemy and has led police to issue arrest warrants for the managers of a department store in Beirut.
The Dubai-based news website MBC.net reported that Lebanese Catholics held a sit-in in front of the Big Sales store in East Beirut last month after the store offered novelty Halloween sandals for sale.
The plastic sandals featured the scene of a bat flying through a graveyard that included cross shaped headstones. Catholics claimed the flip-flops were offensive to Christian sensibilities and filed a complaint with the police.
The National News Agency of Lebanon reported the police confiscated the shoes and launched an investigation in the “reason why such products were being sold and the shoes’ country of origin.”
Store owner Ali Fakih, a Muslim, told a local radio station that he was “not trying to do anything detrimental to religion,” and had committed an “unintentional error.” Big Sales would remain closed until further notice. However, the store’s managers have been taken into police custody for questioning on suspicion of inciting religious hatred.
The sit-in held at Big Sales was ended, however, by the appearance of the local Roman Catholic parish priest, Fr. Dominique. MBC.net reported the priest chastised the crowd for blowing up a “trivial” incident into a sectarian crisis that threatened the peaceful coexistence of “all Lebanese communities.”
“We as Christians should not have a reaction to a cross” used in non-sacred settings, he said. According to the Dubai news site, Fr. Dominique told the crowd to go home and he did “want any cracking of insults or crying out for revenge or hatred” for the Muslims store owners.
The “fire of hatred” was “not quenched by fire” he told the crowd, “but through love.”
Anglican Unscripted, Sept 10, 2011 September 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV, Church of Nigeria, The Episcopal Church, Zimbabwe.Tags: 9/11, Chad Gandiya, Nicholas Okoh, Nolbert Kunonga, prosperity gospel
comments closed
This week’s episode of Anglican Unscripted looks back at 9/11, discusses the recent developments in Zimbabwe and explores the Church of Nigeria’s response to the ‘heresy’ of the prosperity gospel.
http://blip.tv/play/g5IjgtKcJwI.htmlhttp://a.blip.tv/api.swf#g5IjgtKcJwI
3 NZ no’s for the Anglican Covenant: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 7. September 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Anglican Covenant, Church of England Newspaper.comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Three New Zealand dioceses have voted in favour of autonomy over communion and rejected the Anglican Covenant as being un-Anglican.
The Sept 2 votes by Auckland and Waiapu and the June 11 vote by the Maori Amorangi, or episcopal unit, the Te Hui Amorangi o Te Tairawhiti urged the church’s General Synod to reject the proposed agreement to define the limits of Anglican faith and order.
However, all three affirmed their desire to remain full members of the Communion even if they did not sign off on the document—a stance at odds with Archbishop Rowan Williams 2009 statement that a two-tiered communion, one for those who had adopted the covenant and one for those who had not, might well emerge.
Acting in response to a request the General Synod to review the covenant, the Te Hui Amorangi o Te Tairawhiti stated on June 11 the document was un-Anglican.
It offered “us nothing new or more compelling than the Spiritual Covenant that we already have with each other through faith in Jesus Christ;” while the disciplinary provisions of the covenant’s Section 4 “go against our Gospel imperative to ‘love one another’.”
The motion, which received unanimous support, endorsed the decision taken by “our sister Amorangi, Te Hui Amorangi o Te Manawa o Te Wheke,” to rejected the covenant as it “does not reflect our understanding of being Anglican in these Islands.”
New Zealand Archbishop David Moxon’s diocese of Waiapu diocese rejected the proposed covenant at their Sept 2 synod. The motion adopted by the synod stated: “The Diocese of Waiapu affirms its desire to remain a member of the Anglican Communion, valuing highly our common faith, mission, tradition and liturgy. We do not believe that the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant will enhance the life of the Communion and request that the General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui declines to sign the Covenant.”
On Sept 2, the Auckland synod passed a motion noting that the General Synod had “approved in principle Sections 1-3 of the proposed Anglican Covenant, and asked Episcopal Units to respond to its 2012 Session” resolved that Sections 1 and 2 “may be considered to be a useful starting point for consideration of our Anglican understanding of the Church.”
It further stated that Section 3 contained an “acceptable description of the basis for relationships between the churches of the Anglican Communion,” but held that Section 4 contained “provisions which are contrary to our understanding of Anglican ecclesiology, to our understanding of the way of Christ, and to justice, and is unacceptable to this Synod.”
Auckland further asked the General Synod to direct its representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council to bring a motion affirming that “full membership of the Anglican Communion is not conditional on adoption of the proposed Covenant.”
In a letter sent to US Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori during the Episcopal Church’s July 2009 General Convention, Dr. Rowan Williams stated there might be a “two-tier” or “two-track” model for the church with one track for those who affirmed the communion’s “covenantal structure,” and another with “fewer formal expectations” for those who valued autonomy.
“It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are — two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out,” Dr Williams wrote.
Repairs underway for Washington’s National Cathedral: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 6. September 11, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Washington.Tags: earthquake, National Cathedral
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has kicked off an ecumenical fundraising campaign to restore the Washington National Cathedral with a gift of $25,000.
On 23 August the Episcopal cathedral was damaged by an earthquake, which cracked the cathedral’s flying buttresses, damaged the spires of the central tower, and caused damage extensive damage to the building’s ornate stonework.
The damage caused by the 5.8 magnitude earthquake is not covered by insurance and the repairs are expected to take years to complete, as much of the work must be done by master stonemasons.
Washington’s Hebrew Congregation has hosted the Episcopal congregation during the past two Sundays as engineers surveyed the damage as stonemasons and structural engineers implement measures to secure the Cathedral nave before it reopens on 9 September in preparation for the national memorial service commemorating the tenth anniversary of 11 September, 2001. President Barack Obama will address the nation from the Cathedral’s pulpit to mark the occasion.
“We are grateful to our neighbours of faith for their hospitality, generosity, and most importantly, their prayers, as we face the enormous challenge of restoring damaged areas of the Cathedral,” said Cathedral Dean Samuel Lloyd.
“This gift from the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, a testimony to the fellowship that exists between people of different faiths, makes clear the bond we share. We are also grateful for the outpouring of support from faithful individuals across the country, who have given generously in the aftermath of the earthquake. It is a great comfort as we begin to gather financial support for this endeavour, which we expect to reach into the millions of dollars ,” the dean said.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl said “it was with both shock and sadness that I learned of the damage sustained by Washington National Cathedral.”
“The National Cathedral holds a special place in the hearts of all of us in Washington. So many recognize it as a national house of prayer, and indeed its magnificent Gothic towers are a reminder of our constant need to raise our hearts in prayer to God in the midst of all of our daily preoccupations,” said Washington’s Catholic archbishop.
The Mexicans are coming! The Mexicans are coming!: Get Religion, Sept 9, 2011 September 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism.Tags: Mexico, Santa Muerte
comments closed
Santa Muerte
Fears of a gun-toting death cult overrunning the United States drives Middle America’s fear of illegal immigration from Mexico.
No, I am not a loonie. I am merely repeating a sentiment expressed in a recent item in the Daily Telegraph’s political news blog. The article, entitled “A Mexican death cult is fuelling America’s anti-immigration backlash. This is about crime, not race,” discusses the effects on U.S. opinion on the prevalence of the Mexican cult, Santa Muerte, among drug dealers.
Perhaps I should not be so critical of an article slotted into the news blog section of the newspaper, but this story just doesn’t cut it. This piece combines faulty logic with a lack of political and religious sensibility about the North American scene. It is also an object lesson in wasted opportunity and of stepping on a story by letting untested assumptions drive the narrative.
The Telegraph’s argument is: Some illegal aliens from Mexico are devotees of the Santa Muerte cult. Americans do not like illegal immigration from Mexico. Therefore, fears of Santa Muerte lie behind opposition to illegal Mexican immigration.
Sorry. This won’t do.
The bottom line: Correlation does not imply causation.
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, my old Latin master used to say. This is a logical fallacy: “A occurs in correlation with B. Therefore, A causes B.” Passage of a quarter century has not erased my memories of having had to write this 100 times in my copy book. But enough about me; let’s turn to the story.
The article has a nice opening that details the connection of some Mexican drug dealers with the Sante Muerte cult. The author then gives his view of what this all means.
Europeans complain mightily that Muslim immigration has introduced fundamentalism to their secular continent. Yet they tend to look upon Middle America’s fear of illegal Hispanic immigration with contempt, as if its paranoia was motivated entirely by racism. Reporting on new legislation designed to drive illegal immigrants out of the Deep South, The Guardian’s Paul Harris writes that it heralds, “The prospect of a new Jim Crow era – the time when segregation was law – across a vast swath of the old Confederacy. [The legislation] will ostracise and terrorise a vulnerable Hispanic minority with few legal rights.”
Indeed it will, and that is a tragedy. But the debate about illegal immigration isn’t just about competition over jobs or lingering white racism. Many Americans share the European fear that mass migration is subverting their democratic culture from within. In the same way that exotic cells of Jihadists have established themselves in London and Paris, criminal gangs motivated by bloodlust and kinky spiritualism have been found living in the suburbs of Boston and Atlanta. One of its many manifestations is the cult of Santa Meurte.
The author advances some strong claims. Now let’s see him defend his argument. He begins with a description of Santa Muerte.
Santa Muerte is part Virgin Mary, part folk demon. The image of a cloaked saint wielding a scythe is supposed to offer those who venerate it spiritual protection. .. For the poor of Mexico – a nation torn between extremes of wealth and injustice – Santa Muerte is a very pragmatic saint. Like the gang leaders who offer hard cash in return for allegiance, she provides material blessings that the Catholic Church can no longer afford to bestow.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans living in America venerate Santa Muerte and have no association with crime. Nor is the cult purely ethnic .. But the prevalence of Santa Muerte imagery among drug traffickers injects an interesting cultural dimension to the debate over illegal immigration. It accentuates American fears that the drug war in Mexico is turning into an invasion of the USA by antidemocratic fanatics.
The article turns to a discussion of the Mexican gangs and their drug wars, and notes the “warring cartels are bound by a perverse ideology, with Santa Muerte as a unifying icon that terrifies opponents into submission.” However, this is not substantiated.
Having started off hard left, the article closes hard right, stating:
Nevertheless, Americans of every ethnicity are legitimately concerned about their country being poisoned by a criminal subculture that blends political corruption with ritualised murder. Europeans should not be so quick to judge their transatlantic friends. Americans face a vicious threat of their own.
Now there is a story here. Some Mexican gang members are votaries of an esoteric cult that venerates death. Mass migration to the United States is bringing this cult north of the Rio Grande. Coincidentally, it also follows a domestic political fracas surrounding revelations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Justice Department permitted guns illegally purchased in the United States to “walk” into Mexico to arm the drug gangs in an operation called “Fast and Furious.”
I find this fascinating and would want to know more about the cult: its origins, number of adherents, relationship to folk religions or indigenous beliefs, a response from the Roman Catholic Church and the voices of its followers. Are all members of Los Zetas, one of the gangs named, devotees?
The New York Times has done some great reporting on the intersection of crime and religion in Mexican society that raises the issue of whether a church should accept money earned through criminal activities. The Telegraph does a great job in being provocative, painting Middle America in harsh, condescending tones, but it has not been true to the story. The necessary reporting is not present. Instead, we are offered a theory.
Perhaps this is permitted in an item that has strayed from the opinion pages to the halfway house of a news blog. However, to support the claim that American perceptions of Mexican migration to the U.S. are influenced by fears of this cult needs evidence. Am I being unfair? Petty? Prickly?
What say ye?
Call to end child prostitution in Switzerland: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 September 9, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Reformed Church of Hungary.Tags: prostitution
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Hungarian Church and state leaders have petitioned the Swiss government to reform the country’s prostitution laws to end child prostitution.
Speaking on 30 August in Aarau, Bishop Istvan Szabo of the Danube District of the Reformed Church of Hungary said Swiss laws permitting 16-year-olds to work as prostitutes had led “to the undoing of many young Hungarian women.”
It was “incomprehensible to us” that Swiss law permitted child prostitution, the Bishop said, as it contravened European laws governing the protection of children. Swiss demand for child prostitutes also drove the trafficking in women, the Bishop said.
A US State Department report entitled “2011 Trafficking in Persons Report” reported that “Hungary is a source, transit, and destination country for women and girls subjected to sex trafficking.”
“Women from Hungary are forced into prostitution” across Western Europe and the US, while “women from eastern Hungary are subjected to forced prostitution in Budapest and areas in Hungary along the Austrian border. Roma women and girls who grow up in Hungarian orphanages are highly vulnerable to internal sex trafficking,” the report said.
The Hungarian government’s own efforts to combat trafficking were slim, the report noted. It had “allocated approximately $30,000 in 2009 to an NGO to establish a trafficking shelter, only $19,500 was used, and the shelter closed in May 2010. The shelter was limited to assisting Hungarian victims of trafficking, and assisted three such victims in 2010 before closing.”
In his address to the assembly, the President of the SEK, the Rev Gottfried Locher endorsed the call to criminalise child prostitution. “Women between 16 and 18 are not yet adults, there are still half children. Anyone who has teenagers at home like me knows how vulnerable they are,” Mr Locher said.
“It must be said clearly. This business is unChristian. Those who permit [prostitution] are not of the Gospel,” he said, urging the Swiss Churches to press the government with “vigour” to criminalise child-prostitution.
Speaking at a press conference after the assembly, Swiss MP Pascal Bruderer said an amendment had been put forward in the Federal parliament to revise the Penal Code so as to criminalise those who solicit “paid sexual services from minors between 16 and 18 years of age.”
Zoltan Balog, the Hungarian Minister of State for Social Integration, told the press conference his government was working with the Hungarian Churches to curb prostitution, but said poverty and unemployment were a powerful lure.
The Swiss and Hungarian government officials welcomed the Protestant church’s support as there is “definitely an ethical dimension” to prostitution. In addition to providing material support, the church’s job was to provide an “education and preparation for our young people in Hungary to protect against the dangers of prostitution,” Bishop Szabo said.
The Reformed Church of Hungary (Magyarországi Református Egyház) is a Calvinist Church formed during the Reformation and is the country’s second largest church after the Roman Catholic Church. It preserved the episcopal form of governance and is divided into four dioceses or districts in Hungary with an estimated 2.4 million members.
Diplomatic stand-off over the site of Jesus’ baptism: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 9, 2011 p 9. September 8, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, Israel.Tags: al-Maghtas, Baptism, Jordan, Qasr al-Yahoud
comments closed
Jordan River between the Israeli and Jordanian sites
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Israel was guilty of falsifying history and breaking international law, Jordan’s tourism ministry has declared, after it formally re-opened to pilgrims the Qasr al-Yahoud—the traditional site of Christ’s baptism on the West Bank of the Jordan River.
Closed following the 1967 Six Day War, the Qasr al-Yahoud is located in a restricted military area in Israel and is directly across from the al-Maghtas (Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan), the site Jordan claims is the true place of Christ’s baptism.
The two sites have long played host to pilgrims, but the closure of Qasr al-Yahoud since 1967 has given the Jordanian site a leg up in the battle for Christian tourist cash. In March 2010 media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s two daughters were baptized at the al-Maghtas site in a service attended by Jordan’s Queen Rania.
The ceremony sparked controversy last week after Wendy Murdoch told Vogue magazine that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was one of the children’s godfathers and had participated in the ceremony. An 18-page photo spread in Hello! magazine of the service pictured film stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman as godparents, but omitted mention of the former prime minister.
In 2000 the Qasr al-Yahoud was opened by Israeli to pilgrims who could visit the shrine under military escort. The outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada in 2001 closed the shrine, which was only re-opened for religious ceremonies during the Orthodox Epiphany, the Catholic Annunciation and the Orthodox Easter. Last September however, the site was opened to visitors and the area cleared of land mines and barbed wire.
According to a translation made by MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) of the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm, on July 27, 2011, the Jordanian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Dr. Haifa Abu Ghazaleh filed a complaint with the Vatican that Israel had “violated international law and charters by establishing the place called Qasr al-Yahoud and a baptismal site [there], and by holding an [inauguration] ceremony attended by [representatives of] several [Christian] religious streams, in order to provoke Jordan and mislead the world regarding the location of the real baptismal site, which is on Jordanian soil.”
Dr. Abu Ghazaleh added that “grave violation is a provocation [both] to Jordan and to the Vatican, represented by Pope Benedict XVI, which recognizes that the site of Christ’s baptism is on the Jordanian side of the river. It is also a violation of international law because… the [Israeli] site was established on land that the international charters recognize as being under occupation… This is one of an entire series of grave violations of the international laws, charters, and principles, and an attempt to falsify the facts of human history.”
The dispute prompted a meeting between Jordanian officials and Israeli army officers at the midpoint of the King Hussein Bridge that links the two countries, but no accord was reached.
On July 30 the Jordanian interior ministry convened a meeting of government officials, MPs and Christian leaders to defend its claim to possession of the true baptismal site. The meeting generated a statement which said: “The archeological findings, and all testimony, prove that the [authentic] baptismal site is on the east [bank]. It is important to distinguish the baptism of Christ from the baptism [of other Christians], which can take place anywhere. From a historical and religious perspective, the [real] spot where Christ was baptized is on the east [bank] of the river and is called al-Maghtas, [and is] in Jordan.”
Anglican Archdeacon Luay Haddad told the Khabarjo.net website: “For the Christians, this issue is a very important one, and the reaction should be addressed [to people] both inside and outside [Jordan]. It is not enough to issue a communiqué stating that the site of Christ’s baptism is on the east [bank], because everybody [already] acknowledges this fact. We must inform our brothers west of the river that we remain loyal to the [Jordanian] site…
“The opening of the site on the west [bank] comes at an unsuitable time, and contains an element of provocation. [The authenticity of the Jordanian site] is firmly established in the eyes of the church and from the perspective of archeology, religion and tourism. The church documents clearly confirm this, and it is acknowledged by the church’s supreme authorities… It is also supported by the New Testament and by testimonies of the fathers of the early church.”
The Anglican Church believed the opening of the Israeli site was “a grave mistake in terms of history and religion.” He called on Christians to “disregard Israel’s plans whose transparent [goal]… is to spark a conflagration and create new confusion in the region.”
“We hope that all the Christians, especially those in the Holy Land, will be wary of these dubious [Israeli] plans, will take a clear stand against this [new baptismal] site, and will announce that the site on the east [bank] is the only [authentic] site of Christ’s baptism.”
However the archdeacon’s claims appear to be stronger than history would allow, as both sides can show ample historic evidence for their claims. The Vatican Information Service noted that while Pope Benedict XVI visited the al-Maghtas in 2009, he had expressed no opinion on the dispute between the two claimants.
In the sixth century the Emperor Anastasias order a basilica to be built to mark the spot and St John’s Monastery was constructed on the west bank. The east bank of the river has also yielded Byzantine ecclesial ruins tied to Jesus’ baptism, but the historical record remains unclear.
The sixth-century pilgrim Antoninus of Piacenza (Intinerarium 12.4) reported that “Not very far from the Jordan where the Lord was baptized there is the monastery of St John.” The actual spot of the baptism was marked by a votive column crowned by a metallic cross, planted in the middle of the river between the two banks.
However, this report is also suspect as The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) notes that Antoninus was “the last writer who saw Palestine before the Moslem conquest. Although he covered in his travels nearly the same extensive territory as the Spanish nun, [Egeria] his work contains but few details not found in other writers; it is, moreover, marred by gross errors and by fabulous tales which betray the most naive credulity.”
Harare eviction order appealed: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 2, 2011 September 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.Tags: Chad Gandiya, Nolbert Kunonga, property litigation
comments closed
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Harare has appealed the ruling by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku that gives breakaway bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga custody of all of its church properties.
The 4 August order has also unleashed a new campaign of violence, with one priest reported as having been badly beaten by supporters of Dr Kunonga when they attempted to eject him from his vicarage.
On 4 August, Chief Justice Chidyausiku handed down an order in chambers permitting the Diocese of Harare to maintain its lawsuit against Dr Kunonga and to defend its ownership of its churches. However, the judge also ordered that pending a final ruling custody of the buildings would remain with Dr Kunonga’s faction.
“For the avoidance of doubt,” a lower court judgment that awarded custody to Dr Kunonga “will not be suspended by the noting of an appeal against it,” Chief Justice Chidyausiku held.
While the order was intended to preserve the status quo, where the Diocese’s churches were held by Dr Kunonga, the ruling has been used to evict Anglican clergy from their vicarages — which had so far remained under the control of the Anglican diocese.
In a 24 August email to supporters Harare Bishop Chad Gandiya, reported that Dr Kunonga’s henchmen were using force to evict clergy from their livings. “I have just spoken with our priest at St Matthew’s Church in Chinhoyi a few minutes ago who informed me that he had just come from hospital where he was attended to by a doctor on duty because of beatings in the head he received early this evening from Kunonga’s priest and a thug,” the Bishop wrote.
The Rev Jonah Mudowaya was beaten after he “refused to vacate the church house. He has made a report of the incident to the Chinhoyi police. This is an alarming development taking place because of the latest interim judgment given by the Chief Justice.”
“Elsewhere in places like Highfield, Kunonga’s priests broke into church houses. In other places they have gone in the company of the police in order to intimidate our priests into vacating the houses but our priests have insisted on them producing court eviction orders and the presence of messengers of Court and thankfully the police have not forced the evictions,” Bishop Gandiya said.
On 24 August lawyers for the Diocese filed an appeal with the Zimbabwe Supreme Court asking for an en banc review of the chief justice’s order.
In their appeal, the diocesan lawyers argued that the chief justice’s ruling that the “noting of the appeal should not suspend the operation of the order” violated the rules of judicial procedure set down in Section 18 of the Zimbabwean constitution. They asked the full court to mark the order “null and void” and to preserve the status quo pending a final resolution of the dispute.
Dr Kunonga did not respond to emails asking for his view of the proceedings. However, Bishop Gandiya told CEN “we continue to cry out for justice. Please pray with us during these very difficult times in the history of our diocese.”
Gay marriage fight brewing in Australia: The Church of England Newspaper, Sep 2, 2011 September 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper, Marriage.Tags: Australian Christian Lobby, gay marriage
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Australian Church leaders have urged MPs to put the needs of children first and reject proposals to amend the country’s Marriage Act to allow same-sex marriages.
Last week over 50 senior Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church leaders gave their backing to Revising Marriage?, a paper prepared by the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) and distributed to all MPs that defended the traditional view of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
“The traditional concept of marriage has a place in the law for the purpose of supporting the exclusivity and faithfulness of those biological relationships that result in children,” the paper argued. “Marriage in the law is for the sake of children and society,” the ACL paper stated and should not be changed to “primarily serve the interests of adults.”
Revising Marriage? comes amidst a flurry of political manoeuvring with the Greens and some Labor MPs pushing for a re-write of the country’s marriage laws. The Australian Labor Party’s national conference will take up the issue in November and supporters of same-sex marriage have released a survey that suggests 53 per cent of Australian Christians backed gay marriage.
However, political support for the move appears weak. Queensland Liberal-Nationals senator Ron Boswell handed the government a petition last week with more than 52,000 signatures supporting traditional marriage, and a parliamentary debate showed little desire for change.
In Parliament, 30 MPs spoke in response to Green MP Adam Bandt’s motion asking politicians to test voters’ views on gay marriage. Of those who spoke on 24 August, 18 reported their constituencies were against same-sex marriage, six were in favour and six offered no numbers. Opposition to gay marriage enjoyed cross-party support with a majority of Liberal and Labor constituencies opposing the move.
The 17-page Revising Marriage? reported offered theological, sociological, political and economic defences of traditional marriage. It started from the premise that all members of society should be treated fairly under the law, and noted that the legal protections of marriage were provided to same-sex couples under domestic partnership regulations.
However allowing same-sex marriage would fundamentally alter its meaning, they noted.
“Marriage has a place in the law because a relationship between a man and a woman is the kind of relationship that may produce children. Marriage is linked to children, for the sake of children, protecting their identity and their nurture by a mother and a father. The State would have no interest in the permanence and exclusivity of marriage if it were not the fact that marriage may produce children.”
Changing the nature of marriage to accommodate the ideological desires of adults was wrong, the paper argued. “In redefining marriage, the law would teach that marriage is fundamentally about adults’ emotional unions, not complementary bodily union or children, with which marital norms are tightly intertwined,” the paper said.
While supporters of same-sex marriage argue change the law would harm no one, the ACL paper argues that this “revisionist case reduces marriage to a matter of choice and love between adults” and would harm children and society.
“Marriage is a shared obligation for children,” the paper said. “That marriage has come under stress from a variety of causes over the past 50 years, no-fault divorce included, is no reason for radically altering its core nature, its aspirational value to society that it is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”
Endorsing the document were the Anglican bishops of Sydney, Tasmania, Armidale and North West Australia. A spokesman for the Archbishop of Melbourne said Dr Phillip Freier was on leave, however it was her understanding that “he had sought advice from the Social Responsibilities Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, and was advised not to sign the ACL petition as worded.”
Syriana: Get Religion, Sept 7, 2011 September 7, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism.Tags: Al Jazeera, Die Zeit, RT, Syria, The Independent
comments closed
First printed at Get Religion.
There are two must-read articles on Syria out this week, both containing strong religion-news angles concerning the implosion of Bashir al-Assad’s police state.
The London daily The Independent does a nice job in illustrating the ambivalence Syrian Christians have for the regime and the revolt, while the German weekly Die Zeit offers a fascinating view of life inside Syria.
I have found it hard to follow the events in Syria. Most media outlets have been banned from the country, while those operating from inside the tent have been subject to various degrees of censorship. The press reports have been contradictory at times, and a few reports appear to have been dictated by Baghdad Bob’s Syrian cousin. Would that be Damascus Dave?
Western governments appear to be equally at sea, and are relying on their intelligence services (I hope) and the media as their eyes and ears. The reports are often hard to distinguish. On Aug 31 the British Foreign Office released a Q&A that stated: “… security forces have killed at least seven people in southern and central Syria on Tuesday 30 August when they opened fire at worshipers emerging from mosques after early prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.”
An Aug 30 story in the New York Times reported: “Security forces killed at least seven people in southern and central Syria when they opened fire at worshipers emerging from mosques after early prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.”
In the back of my head I heard Dick Enberg’s voice saying “Oh my!” after I read that.
One of the few news organizations still allowed inside Syria has been RT (Russia Today). ”All is well,” the Moscow-based 24/7 news channel reports.
Actually, the disputes we are witnessing are not political but religious. Surprise.
Britain, the US and France are pushing for harsher sanctions against Syria’s President al-Assad, who is believed to have ordered the torture and death of protesters. But on the streets there seems to be no real evidence of anti-government sentiment.
Even the poorest areas of the Syrian city of Homs – which, as a gathering place for people heading into the city center on demonstrations, saw major unrest – now seems quiet and secure.
People on the streets told RT that most of the disturbances in the city are based on religious differences, not politics. People say they are not against the government, neither are they in pursuit of any political ends.
Most of the controversy in Homs arises from differences between the Alawi and Sunni Muslims.
Now how about that. Al-Assad is “believed to have ordered the torture and death of protestors” … the disturbances are “based on religious differences, not politics.” … People are “not against the government …”
This sort of hollow reporting takes me back to my youth. Once upon a time I had a subscription to Soviet Life. I could look forward each month to a jam-packed issue of glossy photo-stories featuring happy peasants playing their balalaikas, dancing in their brightly colored smocks, polishing their tractors … building socialism for the worker’s state. But that’s enough fun for now.
Turning to the good stuff, however: The report in The Independent that ran under the headline, “Life after Assad looks ominous for Syria’s Christian minority” offers some telling snapshots of religious-minority concerns in Syria. The bottom line: Life in Syria is bad, but it could be worse.
There is also, he admits, a fear that Islam might usurp the secular — albeit repressive — brand of Baathist socialist rule in Syria.
“Right now Christians can celebrate Easter. They can wear whatever they want. They can go to the church in safety and they can drink if they want to.
“They are afraid they will lose all this if the regime falls down.”
I wished there had been more space to develop this story, filling out the pro/con voices of Christians speaking about the regime. But at close to 600 words that is about as good as it gets these days in the British press for foreign religion stories.
With a circulation of almost 500,000 the Hamburg-based weekly Die Zeit is the largest German language news weekly. It has translated on its web site Wolfgang Bauer’s powerful and important 4800-word story, ”Die Nato soll uns helfen!” as “Nato must help us.”
Living with a Christian family in Homs, Bauer reports on a city whose 2 million inhabitants are waging war against the Assad regime. He tells of nightly gun battles and artillery tracer shells lighting up the skies, midnight secret police arrests, hospitals turned into execution centers, schools converted into prisons, and mass demonstrations of upwards of half a million people protesting against the regime.
Television and social media has fueled the revolt Die Zeit reports. What started as a local protest against a corrupt mayor grew into an uprising against the state and cries for freedom as Syrians watch events unfold in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Religion is a factor, Die Zeit reports, but not in the way RT describes.
The city threatens to explode under the enormous pressure and tension. Almost half the residents are Sunnis, 20 percent are Alawites while the rest are Christians, Yazidi and Zaidi. The cracks between the communities are widening each day. The Syrian regime is deeply suspicious of Homs ever since it rose up in revolt against the Assad family during a 1982 insurgency by the militant Muslim Brotherhood drawn from the majority Sunni community. In response, the government tried to weaken the influence of the dominant Sunnis in Homs. It built villages around the city for families from Assad’s Alawite minority, which commands power in the government and military. The Sunnis felt encircled and threatened. Since the outbreak of the current unrest, most of the Alawites have fled from the downtown area in Homs. In the suburbs, Alawite gangs have destroyed Sunni businesses. There have been reports of deaths. The Alawites have secured the streets leading to their residential areas with checkpoints. Their street barricades aren’t manned by the military, but by Alawite civilians who now fear being massacred in a Syria without Assad. Homs now resembles Beirut in the 1980s, divided along ethnic and religious lines where it’s too dangerous for people to travel in a particular direction because they will be shot if they do so.
I’m disappointed, but not surprised that the religious angle of the Syrian revolution has not had greater play.
Even Al Jazeera has been all over the place, on this point. Banned from entering Syria, the Qatar-based network’s reports have been uneven. In an account of the Paris meeting of the opposition, Al Jazeera omitted to mention the religious issues at play. Yet in a report on Syrian refugees in Turkey printed the next day, it covered the clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in Syria. It has also seen one of its key editors quit after he charged the network’s management had abandoned its neutrality in its Syrian coverage.
Keep your eye on this channel (GetReligion), as I am confident that in the weeks to come, religion will play an important role in shaping Syria’s future. I just don’t know if it will be good or bad. And I don’t know how much solid coverage we’ll see in the mainstream press.
Hoima cathedral rededicated in Uganda: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 2, 2011 September 6, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Uganda.Tags: Bunyoro-Kitara, Henry Orombi
comments closed
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Archbishop of Uganda has rededicated St Peter’s Cathedral in Hoima in Western Uganda following six months of renovation.
Built in 1928, the church has been enlarged over the years and reached its current form in 1972 when it was named cathedral of the new Diocese of Bunyoro-Kitara and presently seats 700. Following a fundraising campaign within the diocese that raised sh600m (£130,000), work began in March in replacing the roof, a new pulpit, rewiring the church and repairing the church tower.
“We wanted our church to look modern,” project co-ordinator Ronald Mwesigwa said, noting that a sound system, toilets, a full-immersion baptismal font and other modern conveniences were added to the church.
The Kampala newspaper, New Vision, reported Archbishop Henry Orombi led the Aug 28 dedication service and the government was represented by fisheries minister Ruth Nankabirwa.
Mrs. Nankabirwa read a letter of greetings from President Yoweri Museveni, which noted the cathedral’s place in the history of the Kingdom of Bunyoro and its record of service and accomplishment to the people of Western Uganda.
‘Hands off church land’ diocese tells govt: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 2, 2011 September 6, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of the West Indies.Tags: eminment domain, Jamaica
comments closed
Nuttall Memorial Hospital
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Jamaica has denounced state plans to amend the country’s eminent domain laws to allow the government to confiscate private property for commercial redevelopment.
On 19 August the Suffragan Bishop of Montego Bay, the Rt Rev Howard Gregory released a statement on behalf of the Diocese defending the private property rights of citizens in the face of government encroachment. His remarks followed comments made by the head of the state’s Urban Development Corporation (UDC), Ms Joy Douglas, that the UDC was interested in redeveloping the site of the church-owned Nuttall Memorial Hospital in Kingston for commercial uses.
“The right of individuals and institutions to own property is guaranteed by the Constitution” of Jamaica, the Bishop said, and “is protected against any form of compulsory acquisition without certain conditions being satisfied.
“Landownership has been of far more than symbolic value to our people in the history of this country, and for the Government of our nation, the largest landowner, to be proposing changing the laws which have guaranteed the right of citizens and institutions, in order to confiscate property, supposedly for the purpose of redevelopment, is not only unacceptable but in violation of our Constitution,” the Bishop said.
The Diocese was also perturbed by Ms Douglas’ statements that the UDC did not have the funds in hand to pay for land it wanted to acquire. Government “land grabbing” paid for by “some piece of paper which a future generation may be able to cash” was “unacceptable” Bishop Gregory said.
“The direction in which these things are pointing marks a major departure from our current practise and understanding of the rights of citizens, and must not be allowed to proceed without serious debate and engagement by the people of this nation,” the Bishop said.
The UDC responded that government had a “core charge” to “see to the development and redevelopment of urban areas and to address conditions of urban blight.”
However, in the case of the Nuttall Memorial Hospital grounds the Diocese’s concerns were misplaced. The UDC “has not at this time formulated any concept with respect to any specific use of that area in emerging development plans.”
Dating game lawsuit filed in NSW: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 26, 2011 September 5, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: clergy discipline
comments closed
A Facebook photo of John Gumbley
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The New South Wales Supreme Court has been asked to review church rules governing whether a clergyman may date a member of his congregation, and if so, what moral standards should guide his conduct.
The question comes as part of lawsuit brought by a clergyman against the Bishop and Diocese of Newcastle (Australia) who had been defrocked for sexual misconduct.
The Rev John Gumbley last week charged Bishop Brian Farran and the Diocesan Professional Standards Board with using unlawful and immoral means to remove him from the ministry. The suit by Mr Gumbley, former vicar of St Mark’s Church in Terrigal, NSW is the latest legal challenge to the Diocese’s disciplinary policies, which critics charge denies clergy “natural justice.”
In May, 2010 Bishop Farran removed Mr Gumbley from the ministry after the professional standard board found he had engaged in misconduct by engaging in a sexual relationship with a member of his congregation. The 40-year-old unmarried clergyman had protested his innocence, but his veracity was questioned after the board reviewed his private journals that chronicled his private life.
Mr Gumbley charged the diaries had been stolen and should not have been used in evidence against him. The Bishop conceded the diaries had been unlawfully downloaded from Mr Gumbley’s computer by a spurned lover who had handed them over to the Diocese. But the Bishop defended the propriety of using them in an ecclesiastical trial.
“The legal advice was [that] it was an absolute obligation to hand [the diaries] to the inquiry,” Bishop Farran told the Newcastle Herald last year. “It’s a collision between two ethical principles: the rights of the individual and the common good.”
The code of conduct for Anglican clergy, ‘Faithfulness in Service’, directs ministers to maintain “chastity in singleness”’ and forbids clergy from taking “advantage of their role to engage in sexual activity with a person with whom they have a pastoral relationship.”
The Gumbley lawsuit is the third proceeding now underway. On 15 December, the Professional Standards Board held that the former Dean of Newcastle, the Very Rev Graeme Lawrence and his partner — church organist Gregory Goyette — had engaged in sexual relations with a 17-year-old boy at a church camp in 1984. A second priest, the Rev Graeme Sturt was found to have observed the incident, but did not report the abuse.
The board recommended Dean Lawrence and Mr Sturt be defrocked and Mr Goyette prevented from working in the church. The two clergymen responded by filing suit against the board, saying its proceedings were arbitrary and capricious, and have protested their innocence.
Bishop Farran is also the subject of an internal church investigation for misconduct. On 12 May nine complaints were lodged with the office of the General Synod in Sydney against the Bishop. Under canon law, the charges and the commission’s proceedings are not to be made public however sources tell The Church of England Newspaper the charges centre around the Bishop’s handling of the divisions within the cathedral and his oversight of the diocesan professional standards commission.
Mr Gumbley declined to speak to CEN about the pending lawsuit, which argued the clergy disciplinary review process was oppressive, unfair and capricious.
Oakland, Austria: Get Religion Sept 4, 2011 September 4, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Roman Catholic Church.Tags: Austria, Christopher Schonborn, We are the Church
comments closed
Bad Catholic reporting respects no boundaries.
Time Magazine’s website has reprinted a story from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) that reports on the travails of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria. With an estimated 1.1 million readers the Munich-based daily has the largest circulation of any German language newspaper.
Now I take as much delight in the misfortune of others as the next man, schadenfreude being an appropriate word to trot out given the subject of this posting, but while the SZ’s “A Clergy Rebellion in Austria’s Catholic Church” offers a great pitch with a screaming lede, it doesn’t deliver. The facts to support the claims made by the story are not presented. What we have instead is an Austrian Catholic Oakland; there is no there there.
The article starts off with a bang.
There is open rebellion among the clergy of Austria’s Catholic Church. One highly placed man of the cloth has even warned about the risk of a coming schism, as significant numbers of priests are refusing obedience to the Pope and bishops for the first time in memory.
Strong stuff this. Priests in ‘open rebellion’ with a ‘significant number’ refusing to kowtow to the pope with the threat of ‘schism’ waiting in the wings. It is almost too strong, leading to suspicions that it is being ‘sexed up’ a bit. And what about the “We are the church” movement in Austria that has pushed for women in the priesthood, an end to clerical celibacy, and a “positive” attitude towards sexuality? Is this a new group? Maybe the “first time in memory” comment is a bit much. But let’s see what the SZ will do.
The 300-plus supporters of the Priests’ Initiative have had enough of what they call the Church’s “delaying” tactics, and they are advocating pushing ahead with policies that openly defy current practices. These include letting non-ordained people lead religious services and deliver sermons; making communion available to divorced people who have remarried; allowing women to become priests and to take on important positions in the hierarchy; and letting priests carry out pastoral functions even if, in defiance of Church rules, they have a wife and family.
The build up continues but it is beginning to wobble. The priests are not in rebellion but are threatening to rebel by ‘advocating’ for a change in church discipline and doctrine like past reform movements — or is this the same group with a new name? The language is odd too. Shouldn’t the rebels be the ones pushing for ‘practices’ that defy current ‘policies’? The construction given by the SZ privileges the position of those seeking change. More questions: What are these delaying tactics that have so upset the Priests’ Initiative? And these “300-plus supporters”, are we speaking of priests or priests and lay supporters en toto? How many Austrian priests are there? Is 300 a lot or a little? Where did these priests pick up their wives and children — should the Episcopal Church be sending out recruiting parties?
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Vienna’s Archbishop and head of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, has threatened the rebels with excommunication.
Excommunication! A great world that also appears in the caption to the photo accompanying the Time story, but what exactly did the cardinal say? More appetizers are being offered, but so far we have not been fed the main course.
The issues that supporters of the initiative want addressed may be revolutionary, but they are by no means new: they constitute basic questions that have been around for a long time but have never been addressed by Church officials.
Is the SZ saying these issues have never been addressed, or is the Priests’ Initiative claiming the question of women’s ordination, clerical celibacy, the role of the laity in the celebration of church offices, and eucharistic discipline ‘have never been addressed’ by the church? Or, are the answers given to these questions by the church not pleasing to the SZ or the Priests’ Initiative? How can something be revolutionary but not new?
Take the issue of women priests: In his 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis Pope John Paul II said the Catholic Church would never ordain women to the priesthood. The following year the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith held Ordinatio Sacerdotalis had been “set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium,” and “must always be kept, everywhere and by all the faithful, because it belongs to the deposit of faith.” Is the Priests’ Initiative disputing the CDF’s position that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is de fide?
To get some sort of handle on what exactly the Priests’ Initiative wants, an interested reader would need to look elsewhere. (If you are that interested reader try the Vienna daily Der Standard.)
The momentum continues to build as more demands from the Priests’ Initiative are presented and paragraph offering the two sides to the story is inserted.
According to initiative founder [Fr. Helmut] Schüller, only openly disobedient priests and joint pressure from priests and laity alike can force the hierarchy to budge. Although the problems have been out there for decades, he says, the Church keeps putting off doing anything about them. Cardinal Schönborn stated that the critics would have to “give some thought to their path in the Church” or face unavoidable consequences. On the other hand, Anton Zulehner, a priest who is one of the most respected pastoral theologians in Austria, believes that this time the Church is not going to get away with diversionary tactics.
And at this point the story takes an odd turn and closes.
Twenty years ago, Austria, nominally at least, was 85% Catholic. Today, in the city of Vienna, Catholics account for less than half the population, and rural parishes are melting away. Various scandals have rocked the Church in Austria, among them child abuse charges against former Vienna Archbishop Hans-Hermann Groer, and the nomination of a series of reactionary priests to the rank of bishop.
Wait a minute, we were promised rebellion, schism and excommunication. None of these have been delivered. Nor has any sort of context been given. Why are the Austrian clergy, or some portion of the clergy, estranged from their bishop? What are these oft mentioned diversionary tactics ?
We know how Catholic Austria was, how Catholic is it today? Are there less Catholics attending mass, or are more Austrians opting out of paying the state mandated church tax? How are Catholics being counted and who is counting them: the Church or the taxman? Have the clergy abuse scandals taken their toll on membership? The mention of the former archbishop would suggest this is the case. And how should one understand “reactionary priests”? Is this the Austrian version of the ‘vast right wing conspiracy’ or are we being given another episcopal villain to hiss.
To get a better sense of what is going on in Vienna, look at the Reuters story by Religion Editor Tom Heneghan that presents the facts of the dispute without touting for one side over the other. For a detailed, and fascinating analysis of the Austrian Catholic Church check out the US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks on Aug 30.
First published in Get Religion.
Greek ‘no’ to Sharia law: Church of England Newspaper, Sep 2, 2011. September 3, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper.Tags: Greece, Sharia Law
comments closed
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Greek government has abrogated portions of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, ending the jurisdiction of Sharia law courts for Greek Muslims.
On 21 August, the Athens’ daily newspaper Ελευθεροτυπία reported that legislators had jettisoned the parallel Sharia law family court system adopted as part of the Greco-Turkish peace treaty as it did not comply with the Greek constitution’s guarantee of equality of the sexes before the law.
The newly adopted family law code will apply to all Greeks, irrespective of religion.
Under the terms of the Lausanne Treaty, which saw an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, the 110,000 Muslims in Greek-controlled Western Thrace would not be expelled to Turkey, and would be permitted to have its own Sharia court system and were allowed to practice polygamy. Similar religious-based legal provisions were adopted for the Greek minority in Istanbul, but were later abrogated by the Turkish Republic in the 1950s.
A 2010 law review article by Prof Robin Fretwell Wilson noted that as a result of the Treaty, “Muslims in Greece enjoy unique independence from the Greek government. They maintain their own religious and legal institutions, headed by three Muftis who ‘conduct all matters related to civil law’ using Sharia law, specifically Hanafi law.”
She noted that a recent study of divorce within Western Thrace found that under Sharia law the “wife must compensate her husband for the termination of the marriage … by returning the dowry [and] by waiving her right to alimony or even her right to the custody of the children.”
If the husband does not agree to the divorce, “the wife can terminate the marriage only for important reasons pertaining to fault of the husband.”
While the Greek Muftis have accepted such fault-based reasons as a husband’s violence, “the Mufti[s] often reject divorce applications filed by women, who thus remain trapped in non-functioning marriages,” the study found.
“On the rare occasion that someone disputes a Mufti’s decision, Greek courts routinely find the Mufti’s decision enforceable. Greek civil courts denied enforceability in less than one-half of one percent of cases,” Prof Fretwell wrote inPrivatizing Family Law in the Name of Religion.
This was not “surprising” she noted as the judicial review of the Muftis were limited to “whether the Mufti remained within his field of competence and whether the law applied contravenes the [Greek] Constitution.”
While Greece has moved away from Sharia courts, Britain appears to be moving in the opposite direction. In 2008 the Labour government permitted Sharia judges to rule on a host of civil cases, while the Archbishop of Canterbury that year courted controversy when he backed the introduction of Sharia law in the form of a “plural jurisdiction” allowing Muslims to resolve family disputes in religious tribunals or civil courts.
However, not all agreed with the wisdom of Dr Williams’ views. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali noted that “it would be impossible to introduce a tradition like Sharía into [British law] without fundamentally affecting its integrity.”
China in danger from evangelism, Communist Party adviser warns: The Church of England Newspaper, Sep 2, 2011 p 6. September 2, 2011
Posted by geoconger in China, Church of England Newspaper, Persecution.Tags: House Church Movement, Ma Huchen, OMF International, Three Self Patriotic Movement
comments closed
The “abnormal” spread of Christianity across China is a threat to the Communist Party rule and social stability, a paper prepared by a top party academic warns.
Ma Hucheng, an adviser on religion to the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party, warns that the government’s attempt to control Church growth through the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) — the state sanctioned Protestant church — is failing.
“If we are unable to hold the line here, this will damage our independent foreign policy and cause the government to lose control of religion in accordance with the law, and make Christianity once again a political and spiritual tool of control for the West, and make Christianity [in China] a pawn of the Western church,” Ma said, according to a translation of his paper, An Analysis of the Reasons for Rapid Growth of the Protestant Church in Today’s China, prepared by OMF International’s Director of China Research, Tony Lambert.
Since the Chinese government inaugurated an “open-door” policy towards Christianity in 1979, the official number of Christians has grown from 3 million to 23 million under the oversight of the TSPM. However, Christians outside the control of the TSPM are growing at the rate of a million a year to “become the first and largest religion in China,” states the article, which appeared in translation in OMF’s China Insight.
Party researchers disagree on the numbers of Protestants, but concur the church is growing rapidly. “We estimate the number of Protestants to be around 40 million on average, so with one million converts annually over the last 30 years, in another 20 years we give a conservative figure of about 60 million, but after 50 years conservatively there will be 100 million Protestant Christians,” Ma said.
However, this figure is the most conservative estimate, he noted. “As there is the tradition in Christianity of ‘everyone can be an evangelist’, as the number of believers multiplies so does the number of evangelists, so even more people become believers. So a moderate estimate is that, in 50 years time, the number of Christians will be 150-200 million,” Ma predicted.
Other researchers, he noted, estimate “that in just the next 20 years there will be 200 million and even 300 million Christians” in China, he said, citing the model of South Korea where the church in the last 40 years grew to comprise 35 per cent of the population and “the largest religion there.”
The reasons for growth were varied, Ma said. Government policy since 1979 had “created a favourable and broad external environment for the growth of Christianity,” he observed, coupled with the social acceptance of religious faith. “Religion was no longer regarded as backward and to be rejected. Believers no longer were regarded as dissidents to be attacked and in need of political re-education.”
While religion was now legal, local governments failed to “effectively and promptly” prohibit “illegal Christian evangelism,” Ma wrote, “hence, Christianity grew too fast and out of control.”
Foreign influence had also led to church growth, he argued. “Some nations have even made it part of their national strategy to evangelize China, planning to impose on China their views on human rights and cultural values, based on Christianity.”
The implications for China’s “national security” were clear, Ma warned. “Western powers, with America at their head, deliberately export Christianity to China and carry out all kinds of illegal evangelistic activities. Their basic aim is to use Christianity to change the character of the regime in power in China and to overturn it.”
There was, he noted, a “battle to gain the very soul of China,” which Christians must not be allowed to win.
“The present rapid grown of Christianity destroys the religious balance and is a negative influence on the State and society and Christianity itself. Thus, we must formulate a strategic plan and take comprehensive action to resolve the problem,” Ma concluded.
First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
