From theage.com.au via VirtueOnline:
LIZZY DAVIES, PARIS.
November 8, 2009
Belief in the gospel truth is spreading.
AS THE piano strikes up, the congregation sways, fists in the air, murmurs of hallelujah punctuating the music. Pastor Franck Lefillatre, bathed in the spotlight on his podium, intones into a microphone.
''Let out the words that are in your heart,'' he urges. His whispers crescendo to booming rhetoric. Behind him, emblazoned in gold lettering, are the words: ''Jesus Christ: the same yesterday, today, eternally.''
As evangelical services go, this gathering on a rainy Sunday is nothing unusual. In countless churches across the US and many countries, it would be a staple means of Christian worship.
But this is not the American Bible Belt. It is the Church of Paris-Bastille, and this congregation is one of a growing number of evangelical communities spreading through France and prospering in spite of its secular - and Catholic - traditions.
From a postwar population of about 50,000, French evangelicals are now estimated to number 450,000 to 500,000. According to the Evangelical Federation of France, the number of churches has risen from 800 in 1970 to more than 2200 today.
Last week, the boom made headlines when thousands of evangelicals descended on Strasbourg to turn the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth into a huge media-covered event.
On paper, France would seem one of the least likely places for this branch of Christianity to gain a foothold. For centuries, Protestantism was the embattled minority in a country Catholics liked to call the ''eldest daughter of the church'' because of its strong ties to Rome. That minority still makes up just 3 per cent of the population.
More importantly, ever since France wrote a separation of church and state into the constitution, the country has worshipped at the altar of laicite - the concept of a secular state.
So the emergence of evangelicals as a force has raised eyebrows, with some critics questioning whether their beliefs are compatible with the values of a secular republic. They are associated in many minds with the politically powerful movement of the US religious right.
Jean-Francois Colosimo, a writer and religious historian, provoked a furious backlash from evangelicals when, after it emerged that France's intelligence services had launched a ''census'' of the domestic population, he said: ''Everything in France would seem to ban a politico-religious mixture. But laicite is fragile and temptations are present'' - a direct reference to the evangelicals.
These arguments are rejected as irrelevant by French believers. Just because they have the same faith as the Americans and a similar style of worship, they say, it does not mean they share the same politics. But Henri Tincq, a religious commentator, said issues such as abortion and homosexuality were creeping up the agenda.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
ACNA grows
In the interview below Archbishop Robert Duncan reports, "In June, when the Anglican Church in North America was constituted, there were 702 congregations. Right now there are 755."
Kind of makes me wonder about pecusa and their predictions of the demise of conservative Anglicanism in North America. Do pecusa talking heads ever check into reality?
In answer to a question regarding the legal battle that pecusa continues to pursue against the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Archbishop Duncan replies,
"There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future."
That sums it up for me. pecusa can wage all kinds of legal battles and accumulate all kinds of parish properties that they will sell because they don't have enough people to populate the buildings they already possess. Doesn't it make you wonder what kind of gospel pecusa really believes?
Kind of makes me wonder about pecusa and their predictions of the demise of conservative Anglicanism in North America. Do pecusa talking heads ever check into reality?
In answer to a question regarding the legal battle that pecusa continues to pursue against the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Archbishop Duncan replies,
"There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future."
That sums it up for me. pecusa can wage all kinds of legal battles and accumulate all kinds of parish properties that they will sell because they don't have enough people to populate the buildings they already possess. Doesn't it make you wonder what kind of gospel pecusa really believes?
Seven Episcopal Dioceses meet to begin Missional Relationships
from TitusOneNine by Kendall Harmon
Clergy and lay representatives from seven dioceses in The Episcopal Church, as well as six bishops with Episcopal jurisdiction, met in Charleston, S.C. on November 3-4, 2009 to consider ways they might assist each other in more effectively reaching their communities and the world for Christ. More specifically, in keeping with General Convention resolution B030, which encouraged domestic Dioceses within The Episcopal Church to enter into missional relationship, this meeting encouraged the dioceses to consider what resources they can share with each other and work more closely to further the Gospel mission. Evangelizing and reaching the unchurched; catechizing and discipling the converted; assisting members in generational faithfulness; renewing, strengthening and growing existing parishes; and planting new congregations to reach their communities with the Gospel were the areas of greatest interest.
To this end, through the work of some of the Communion Partner bishops and rectors, along with others, these Dioceses in Missional Relationships will begin by hosting two initiatives for the purpose of encouraging and equipping missionally focused dioceses, congregations and individuals through:
1. Establishing a website for sharing resources and networking for ministry and mission. It is their intention to have this ministry-networking initiative functioning in an initial stage during Epiphany 2010; and,
2. Sponsoring a large venue three day event in Dallas, September 23—25, 2010. This event will be for the purpose of encouraging, empowering, emboldening and equipping missionally focused individuals, congregations and dioceses, as well as providing resources to assist each other to be more effective in reaching their communities for Christ and his Church.
Dioceses presently involved in this Gospel initiative are Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Springfield, and Western Louisiana.
Clergy and lay representatives from seven dioceses in The Episcopal Church, as well as six bishops with Episcopal jurisdiction, met in Charleston, S.C. on November 3-4, 2009 to consider ways they might assist each other in more effectively reaching their communities and the world for Christ. More specifically, in keeping with General Convention resolution B030, which encouraged domestic Dioceses within The Episcopal Church to enter into missional relationship, this meeting encouraged the dioceses to consider what resources they can share with each other and work more closely to further the Gospel mission. Evangelizing and reaching the unchurched; catechizing and discipling the converted; assisting members in generational faithfulness; renewing, strengthening and growing existing parishes; and planting new congregations to reach their communities with the Gospel were the areas of greatest interest.
To this end, through the work of some of the Communion Partner bishops and rectors, along with others, these Dioceses in Missional Relationships will begin by hosting two initiatives for the purpose of encouraging and equipping missionally focused dioceses, congregations and individuals through:
1. Establishing a website for sharing resources and networking for ministry and mission. It is their intention to have this ministry-networking initiative functioning in an initial stage during Epiphany 2010; and,
2. Sponsoring a large venue three day event in Dallas, September 23—25, 2010. This event will be for the purpose of encouraging, empowering, emboldening and equipping missionally focused individuals, congregations and dioceses, as well as providing resources to assist each other to be more effective in reaching their communities for Christ and his Church.
Dioceses presently involved in this Gospel initiative are Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Springfield, and Western Louisiana.
Anglican Diocese to expand, cut costs
Via TitusOneNine:
Sunday, November 08, 2009
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Due to at least a temporary loss of endowment, the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has slashed its budget, but still plans to launch 70 new churches over five years.
It received five mission congregations at its convention yesterday in Sewickley. It also received four parishes from outside its original boundaries. All nine were already counted among its 58 churches.
The Anglican diocese is appealing a Common Pleas Court decision awarding its endowment to the 28-parish Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The two split last year when a majority at the diocesan convention voted to secede from the Episcopal Church, which they believed had failed to uphold biblical doctrine on matters from salvation to sexuality. The Anglican diocese billed this as its 144th convention, and there were references to the Episcopalians as "the rogue diocese."
But others can't be blamed for any past failure of missionary initiative, said the Rev. Mary Hays, canon to the ordinary, as she urged the diocese to start 70 new churches.
"There's a reason we're in this mess and it isn't just the rogue diocese," she said. "We have to take responsibility for not reaching the people around us with the love and power of the Lord Jesus."
The diocese left the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. Both the Southern Cone and the Episcopal Church belong to the global Anglican Communion.
In June the diocese joined the new Anglican Church in North America, which hopes to join the Anglican Communion.
Yesterday it voted for sole affiliation with the Anglican Church in North America, while its bishops and clergy hold dual credentials with the Southern Cone.
It adopted a flexible 2010 budget of $919,163 to $987,416. That's down from $1.7 million for 2009. Rent will be slashed by moving from Downtown to the North Side. Archbishop Robert Duncan's pay package was reduced from $192,700 to $89,356 but he will receive $75,000 from the Anglican Church in North America for serving as its archbishop.
The convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing abortion, except to save the mother's life, and called for aid to women with crisis pregnancies. There were questions about a clause against teaching that "divorces the sexual act from ... the possibility of procreation."
Some asked if that was a criticism of contraceptive use. Co-author Deacon Tara Jernigan of Butler replied that "the intent here is not to legislate with regard to birth control" but to counteract a world view "that has divorced sex from babies."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09312/1011753-455.stm#ixzz0WMS8HzIf
Sunday, November 08, 2009
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Due to at least a temporary loss of endowment, the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has slashed its budget, but still plans to launch 70 new churches over five years.
It received five mission congregations at its convention yesterday in Sewickley. It also received four parishes from outside its original boundaries. All nine were already counted among its 58 churches.
The Anglican diocese is appealing a Common Pleas Court decision awarding its endowment to the 28-parish Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The two split last year when a majority at the diocesan convention voted to secede from the Episcopal Church, which they believed had failed to uphold biblical doctrine on matters from salvation to sexuality. The Anglican diocese billed this as its 144th convention, and there were references to the Episcopalians as "the rogue diocese."
But others can't be blamed for any past failure of missionary initiative, said the Rev. Mary Hays, canon to the ordinary, as she urged the diocese to start 70 new churches.
"There's a reason we're in this mess and it isn't just the rogue diocese," she said. "We have to take responsibility for not reaching the people around us with the love and power of the Lord Jesus."
The diocese left the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. Both the Southern Cone and the Episcopal Church belong to the global Anglican Communion.
In June the diocese joined the new Anglican Church in North America, which hopes to join the Anglican Communion.
Yesterday it voted for sole affiliation with the Anglican Church in North America, while its bishops and clergy hold dual credentials with the Southern Cone.
It adopted a flexible 2010 budget of $919,163 to $987,416. That's down from $1.7 million for 2009. Rent will be slashed by moving from Downtown to the North Side. Archbishop Robert Duncan's pay package was reduced from $192,700 to $89,356 but he will receive $75,000 from the Anglican Church in North America for serving as its archbishop.
The convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing abortion, except to save the mother's life, and called for aid to women with crisis pregnancies. There were questions about a clause against teaching that "divorces the sexual act from ... the possibility of procreation."
Some asked if that was a criticism of contraceptive use. Co-author Deacon Tara Jernigan of Butler replied that "the intent here is not to legislate with regard to birth control" but to counteract a world view "that has divorced sex from babies."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09312/1011753-455.stm#ixzz0WMS8HzIf
QUESTIONS FOR ROBERT DUNCAN
From The New York Times via BabyBlue:
Is This Bishop Catholic?
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: November 5, 2009
As the archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, you are known as the leader of a conservative — and even ultraright — movement that was founded last year in a break from the Episcopal Church. Do you plan to convert to Catholicism now that Pope Benedict has opened his doors to Anglicans?
I wouldn’t characterize us as ultraright. We don’t beat up folks. We are sort of mainstream right. I am very pleased that the Vatican has done this, but my call now is to lead all those Anglicans who stand where Anglicans have always stood.
Have you had any contact with the pope?
I corresponded with him as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, when we had the first national gathering of Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans who realized they couldn’t go on with the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.
Was this at the time that the Rev. Gene Robinson was being consecrated by the Episcopal Church as the first openly gay bishop?
It was between the time he was confirmed and ordained. He’s a likable enough guy, but the problem is he’s leading a whole generation astray. I don’t believe he should be a bishop.
You and Robinson were fellow students at the General Theological Seminary in New York.
Yes. That was in the early ’70s. He was living a heterosexual lifestyle at the time. He was married. Then he left his wife and later committed himself to a male partner. I don’t wish him ill.
We should point out that you were deposed from ministry of the Episcopal Church by the presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, after you threatened to have your diocese in Pittsburgh secede.
That was a year ago, but what’s interesting is that virtually no one in the Anglican world accepted that sentence. Within two weeks of being deposed, I was received at Lambeth Palace in London by the archbishop of Canterbury, who continues to consider me a bishop.
Bishop Schori heads the Episcopal Church in this country, and you opposed her election in 2006?
She was the least qualified, the least experienced, of the candidates, but I hoped that what she would bring if she were elected was the kind of grace that women often bring. She turned out to be far harder, far less willing to bend or compromise, than any of the men.
Where are you from?
I was raised in Bordentown, N.J., at Christ Episcopal Church in Bordentown. It’s a very special place. It’s where I was married, where I met my wife. It’s just a great parish church.
What was your childhood like?
My family knew a lot of turmoil, and there were a lot of things that happened in the house that were very unhappy. My mother was emotionally disturbed. She was a very difficult person. There were times when I was not sure I’d wake up in the morning because of her violence.
And your father?
He just died last week.
I’m sorry. Were you close to him?
Again, not greatly close to him. I tried to be a faithful son. He didn’t know how to handle my mother.
How large is this new denomination of yours?
In June, when the Anglican Church in North America was constituted, there were 702 congregations. Right now there are 755.
Is there any truth to the popular notion that the Anglican Church was created by Henry VIIIjust so he could annul his marriage? He wanted to ditch Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.
There’s no question that the Anglican Church, the Church of England, was created as an aspect of state policy. It had a very bad beginning. It had a very secular, very political beginning. God used it for good.
I see a lawsuit was filed by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to take away both money and property in your control as the longtime bishop there.
There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future.
INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.
Is This Bishop Catholic?
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: November 5, 2009
As the archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, you are known as the leader of a conservative — and even ultraright — movement that was founded last year in a break from the Episcopal Church. Do you plan to convert to Catholicism now that Pope Benedict has opened his doors to Anglicans?
I wouldn’t characterize us as ultraright. We don’t beat up folks. We are sort of mainstream right. I am very pleased that the Vatican has done this, but my call now is to lead all those Anglicans who stand where Anglicans have always stood.
Have you had any contact with the pope?
I corresponded with him as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, when we had the first national gathering of Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans who realized they couldn’t go on with the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.
Was this at the time that the Rev. Gene Robinson was being consecrated by the Episcopal Church as the first openly gay bishop?
It was between the time he was confirmed and ordained. He’s a likable enough guy, but the problem is he’s leading a whole generation astray. I don’t believe he should be a bishop.
You and Robinson were fellow students at the General Theological Seminary in New York.
Yes. That was in the early ’70s. He was living a heterosexual lifestyle at the time. He was married. Then he left his wife and later committed himself to a male partner. I don’t wish him ill.
We should point out that you were deposed from ministry of the Episcopal Church by the presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, after you threatened to have your diocese in Pittsburgh secede.
That was a year ago, but what’s interesting is that virtually no one in the Anglican world accepted that sentence. Within two weeks of being deposed, I was received at Lambeth Palace in London by the archbishop of Canterbury, who continues to consider me a bishop.
Bishop Schori heads the Episcopal Church in this country, and you opposed her election in 2006?
She was the least qualified, the least experienced, of the candidates, but I hoped that what she would bring if she were elected was the kind of grace that women often bring. She turned out to be far harder, far less willing to bend or compromise, than any of the men.
Where are you from?
I was raised in Bordentown, N.J., at Christ Episcopal Church in Bordentown. It’s a very special place. It’s where I was married, where I met my wife. It’s just a great parish church.
What was your childhood like?
My family knew a lot of turmoil, and there were a lot of things that happened in the house that were very unhappy. My mother was emotionally disturbed. She was a very difficult person. There were times when I was not sure I’d wake up in the morning because of her violence.
And your father?
He just died last week.
I’m sorry. Were you close to him?
Again, not greatly close to him. I tried to be a faithful son. He didn’t know how to handle my mother.
How large is this new denomination of yours?
In June, when the Anglican Church in North America was constituted, there were 702 congregations. Right now there are 755.
Is there any truth to the popular notion that the Anglican Church was created by Henry VIIIjust so he could annul his marriage? He wanted to ditch Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.
There’s no question that the Anglican Church, the Church of England, was created as an aspect of state policy. It had a very bad beginning. It had a very secular, very political beginning. God used it for good.
I see a lawsuit was filed by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to take away both money and property in your control as the longtime bishop there.
There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future.
INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.
DioFort Worth Makes It Official--We have acceded to the Constitution and Canons of the ACNA and endorsed the Anglican Covenant
from Texanglican by texanglican
When the gavel fell bringing our 27th diocesan convention to an end about an hour ago the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth officially became a full member of the Anglican Church of North America, ending the "provisional" member status we have had in ACNA since its Inaugural Assembly last June here at St. Vincent's Cathedral.
By a unanimous voice vote the convention committed us "to continued participation in the development of the Anglican Church in North America, acceding to the Constitution and Canons thereof during this process." At the same time, our diocese will also maintain "its status as a member diocese in the Province of the Southern Cone while the formal process of recognition of this new province continues in the Anglican Communion."
We also unanimously expressed our "readiness to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant (Ridley Cambridge Draft)" and our "solidarity with the Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America and the Communion Partner Bishops in North America in the hope that individual dioceses and other churches [Covenant 4.1.5] be encouraged to adopt the Anglican Covenant."
By another unanimous voice vote we also declared that we share "Metropolitan Jonah’s vision 'to live, to actualize, and to participate in the full integrity of the Catholic Church—the full integrity of Orthodox Catholicism,'" and communicated to "Metropolitan Jonah and the
Orthodox Church in America [our] desire to work toward that full, visible, and sacramental unity that the Lord Jesus Christ desires in his prayer that 'they all may be one.'"
Finally, we also expressed our "deep gratitude" to Pope Benedict XVI for "his willingness to achieve full communion with Anglicans" and urged members of our diocese to study prayerfully his soon-to-be-released Apostolic Constitution on reception of Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church.
The full texts of the resolutions may be found by clicking the title of this blog entry. All of these resolutions were adopted without modification by unanimous voice vote.
Archbishop Dimitri of the Orthodox Church of America (pictured below with Bishop Iker--photo by S. Gill) brought us fraternal greetings on behalf of Metropolitan Jonah. He was warmly received, as was the representative of the Roman Catholic diocese.
When the gavel fell bringing our 27th diocesan convention to an end about an hour ago the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth officially became a full member of the Anglican Church of North America, ending the "provisional" member status we have had in ACNA since its Inaugural Assembly last June here at St. Vincent's Cathedral.
By a unanimous voice vote the convention committed us "to continued participation in the development of the Anglican Church in North America, acceding to the Constitution and Canons thereof during this process." At the same time, our diocese will also maintain "its status as a member diocese in the Province of the Southern Cone while the formal process of recognition of this new province continues in the Anglican Communion."
We also unanimously expressed our "readiness to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant (Ridley Cambridge Draft)" and our "solidarity with the Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America and the Communion Partner Bishops in North America in the hope that individual dioceses and other churches [Covenant 4.1.5] be encouraged to adopt the Anglican Covenant."
By another unanimous voice vote we also declared that we share "Metropolitan Jonah’s vision 'to live, to actualize, and to participate in the full integrity of the Catholic Church—the full integrity of Orthodox Catholicism,'" and communicated to "Metropolitan Jonah and the
Orthodox Church in America [our] desire to work toward that full, visible, and sacramental unity that the Lord Jesus Christ desires in his prayer that 'they all may be one.'"
Finally, we also expressed our "deep gratitude" to Pope Benedict XVI for "his willingness to achieve full communion with Anglicans" and urged members of our diocese to study prayerfully his soon-to-be-released Apostolic Constitution on reception of Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church.
The full texts of the resolutions may be found by clicking the title of this blog entry. All of these resolutions were adopted without modification by unanimous voice vote.
Archbishop Dimitri of the Orthodox Church of America (pictured below with Bishop Iker--photo by S. Gill) brought us fraternal greetings on behalf of Metropolitan Jonah. He was warmly received, as was the representative of the Roman Catholic diocese.
Former TEC Dioceses Welcome Congregations
From The Living Church via BabyBlue:
Posted on: November 5, 2009
As two former Episcopal dioceses hold conventions this weekend, they are beginning to incorporate congregations from across the nation.
The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote on welcoming Harvest Anglican Church, Homer City, Pa.; Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland, Ohio; Holy Trinity Church, Raleigh, N.C.; and St. James Church, San Jose, Calif.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) plans to receive St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church, Springdale, Ark., as a new mission station. It also will welcome two existing parishes: St. Matthias’ Anglican Church, Dallas; and Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Okla.
On Oct. 30, the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee went to court against St. Andrew’s Church, Nashville, which left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and has since announced its affiliation with the Diocese of Quincy (Ill.).
The Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin (Southern Cone) has welcomed three neighboring California parishes — St. Andrew’s in the Desert, Lancaster; St. David’s, San Rafael; and Santa Maria de Juquila, Seaside — and Jesus the Good Shepherd, Henderson, Nevada.
In the context of the Anglican Church in North America’s constitution [PDF], such an elastic definition of diocesan borders is a feature and not a bug.
“Congregations and clergy are related together in a diocese, cluster, or network (whether regional or affinity-based), united by a bishop,” the ACNA’s constitution says. “Dioceses, clusters or networks (whether regional or affinity-based) may band together for common mission, or as distinct jurisdictions at the sub-Provincial level.”
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is establishing one type of network within ACNA: regional districts.
The Rt. Rev. David Bena, a suffragan bishop of CANA and a former suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, is guiding the growth of the recently established Anglican District in the Northeast.
“In the Northeast we had ten parishes that were interested in doing mission and ministry together,” he told The Living Church. “They were not connected except by bishop visitations.”
The new district will unite seven congregations in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Two other CANA districts unite congregations in Virginia and in the Great Lakes.
“We are going to coordinate on overseas missions and concentrate on the possibility of planting new churches,” Bishop Bena said of his district. “We’re also talking about trying to plant some churches up here in the rocky soil of the Northeast.”
While serving in Albany, Bishop Bena could travel from one end of the diocese to the other within six hours. Today, he travels more by airline than by car. His work also has him providing pastoral guidance to two different types of congregations: those that separated from the Episcopal Church, and those that have approached CANA from evangelical and independent backgrounds.
“For those who used to be Episcopalians, there’s a good deal of work to be done on dealing with grief,” Bishop Bena said. “Half of our congregations had to walk away from their buildings. If you don’t forgive, you get stuck.
“For those who weren’t Episcopalians, it’s the joy of being on the ‘Canterbury trail,’ and a question of how you become more immersed in that life.”
Douglas LeBlanc
Posted on: November 5, 2009
As two former Episcopal dioceses hold conventions this weekend, they are beginning to incorporate congregations from across the nation.
The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote on welcoming Harvest Anglican Church, Homer City, Pa.; Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland, Ohio; Holy Trinity Church, Raleigh, N.C.; and St. James Church, San Jose, Calif.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) plans to receive St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church, Springdale, Ark., as a new mission station. It also will welcome two existing parishes: St. Matthias’ Anglican Church, Dallas; and Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Okla.
On Oct. 30, the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee went to court against St. Andrew’s Church, Nashville, which left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and has since announced its affiliation with the Diocese of Quincy (Ill.).
The Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin (Southern Cone) has welcomed three neighboring California parishes — St. Andrew’s in the Desert, Lancaster; St. David’s, San Rafael; and Santa Maria de Juquila, Seaside — and Jesus the Good Shepherd, Henderson, Nevada.
In the context of the Anglican Church in North America’s constitution [PDF], such an elastic definition of diocesan borders is a feature and not a bug.
“Congregations and clergy are related together in a diocese, cluster, or network (whether regional or affinity-based), united by a bishop,” the ACNA’s constitution says. “Dioceses, clusters or networks (whether regional or affinity-based) may band together for common mission, or as distinct jurisdictions at the sub-Provincial level.”
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is establishing one type of network within ACNA: regional districts.
The Rt. Rev. David Bena, a suffragan bishop of CANA and a former suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, is guiding the growth of the recently established Anglican District in the Northeast.
“In the Northeast we had ten parishes that were interested in doing mission and ministry together,” he told The Living Church. “They were not connected except by bishop visitations.”
The new district will unite seven congregations in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Two other CANA districts unite congregations in Virginia and in the Great Lakes.
“We are going to coordinate on overseas missions and concentrate on the possibility of planting new churches,” Bishop Bena said of his district. “We’re also talking about trying to plant some churches up here in the rocky soil of the Northeast.”
While serving in Albany, Bishop Bena could travel from one end of the diocese to the other within six hours. Today, he travels more by airline than by car. His work also has him providing pastoral guidance to two different types of congregations: those that separated from the Episcopal Church, and those that have approached CANA from evangelical and independent backgrounds.
“For those who used to be Episcopalians, there’s a good deal of work to be done on dealing with grief,” Bishop Bena said. “Half of our congregations had to walk away from their buildings. If you don’t forgive, you get stuck.
“For those who weren’t Episcopalians, it’s the joy of being on the ‘Canterbury trail,’ and a question of how you become more immersed in that life.”
Douglas LeBlanc
BISHOP IKER’S ADDRESS TO THE 27TH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF FORT WORTH
From the DFW via TitusOneNine:
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
The theme chosen for this year’s Convention is “Standing Firm in the Faith.” It is an allusion to verses in chapter 6 of the Epistle to the Ephesians where St. Paul urges them to continue to stand fast against the powers of evil and for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do this, he reminds them of the need to “put on the whole armor of God,” so that having stood, they might be enabled to continue to stand - firm in the faith they had received.
It is never enough for us as Christians to stand against something – important as it is to oppose all that is evil and false. We must also stand for something – namely the revealed truth of the Christian faith. We must be clear that standing firm in the faith is not something that is static or inactive. It is not simply standing in place. Stand up for Jesus, yes, but don’t stand still! Taking a stand means active engagement in spiritual warfare, evangelism, witnessing, teaching, pastoral care, proclamation and all the rest. Standing firm means mission, outreach and church growth. It means taking the initiative, being on the offense, not just being on the defense in a reactive sort of way.
As a diocese, I am proud to say that we have stood our ground, not only in defense of the Gospel, but also by actively advancing the Kingdom of God. Clearly our work is far from over, and the power of the evil one is great. We must continue to stand boldly in the face of whatever opposition or challenges may confront us. In Jesus, the ultimate victory is won, but the battle is not over. Bishop Samuel Wiley once said: “The Church is the pilgrim people of God, who in the midst of the battle, pause to celebrate the victory.” Having stood in the past, let us renew our resolve to continue to stand firm in the faith once delivered to the saints, without compromise or surrender.
By God’s grace, we are called to build upon and expand what others have accomplished before us. Faithfulness, steadfastness, firmness have characterized this Diocese since our beginning twenty-seven years ago. We have followed in the brave footsteps of some wonderful Christian men and women who have gone before us. We are the beneficiaries of their labors. In particular, I am mindful of four great priestly soldiers of Christ who have died this past year and gone on to their reward. We are forever indebted to them for all they contributed to the life and witness of this diocese for many, many years. They were indeed exceptional priests who deeply enriched and blessed this diocese through their ministry and service: The Rev. Canon James P. DeWolfe, Jr., the Rev. William R. Belury, the Rev. Canon Laurens R. Williams, and the Rev. Canon Dr. John H. Heidt. We thank God for them. They will be deeply missed. I ask you to stand to honor and remember them in a moment of silence. “May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.”
Since this past April, the threat of a lawsuit has been hanging over us, seeking to distract us from our mission and make us anxious about the future. As you know, the small minority who separated from us in order to remain in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America has not been content with our willingness to give them their buildings and property – they want ours as well! It has been and will continue to be a huge distraction and a great drain on time, energy and resources. I have tried to keep all of you informed, while at the same time not being preoccupied with the litigation, as it has developed. Our focus must be on the mission of the Church, not the lawsuit. Sad to say, there is no end in sight. Once there is a decision by the court, whichever side loses will surely file an appeal, with the likelihood of another appeal after that. So we are talking years, not months, before this whole matter is resolved. I can assure you that we are being very well represented by our attorneys, and I ask that you continue to pray for them as they go about their work, especially our lead attorney, Shelby Sharpe. I am certain that he would want me to remind you, however, that our hope and trust is in God alone, not our legal team. We are engaged in spiritual warfare, as well as a legal battle. I would also remind you that no diocesan funds or parish assessments are going toward our legal expenses. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, all of our legal fees are being paid by special gifts. For this, we are sincerely and deeply grateful, and we say a word of heartfelt thanks at this time.
As the lawsuit makes its way through the courts, we must continue to focus on the mission of the church, to go make disciples of all nations and to minister in the name of Christ to all who are in need. We are called to be a missionary and evangelistic church, as well as a ministering and serving church. But the work of the church is always hampered and weakened by divisions among us. So now more than ever, we must work and pray for the unity of the Church of God. Christ wills for his disciples to be one, and we must do all we can to heal the brokenness in the Body of Christ. It is not enough to simply maintain the historic biblical faith for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We must also share it with others, in order to bring the whole world to Christ. And this work must be done in concert with others, never alone. So let us work and pray for a deeper unity in Christ for all believers, for the sake of mission, that the world may believe.
One of the big highlights of this Convention is our great joy in welcoming into our diocese five new congregations. This is unprecedented in the history of the diocese! So let us greet with joy and thanksgiving those churches joining our diocese today: St. Francis in Dallas, St. Matthias in Dallas, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, St. Gabriel’s in Springdale, Arkansas, and our newly founded mission church here in Fort Worth – Christ the Redeemer. Please join me in giving them again a warm Fort Worth welcome in a round of applause. I am pleased to report that we are in the process of exploring new mission stations in a variety of other locations, both in Texas and beyond, and that we expect to continue to add new congregations to the diocese in the years ahead.
Exciting possibilities are before us as we work for the unity of the Church, and there are three resolutions before us at this Convention that address this concern. The first is a resolution concerning the Anglican Church in North America. Here we seek unity with orthodox Anglicans who have separated from The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, while maintaining our membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion by our temporary affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone. We are indeed deeply grateful to Archbishop Greg Venables for taking us into his fold and for providing primatial oversight and protection for us as this new province emerges in North America. While recognizing continuing theological differences among us, which has always been the case among Anglicans, this movement is a realignment that attempts “to maintain the highest degree of communion possible” with orthodox Anglicans around the world, as well as with the Archbishop of Canterbury. We are also grateful to Archbishop Robert Duncan for his tireless efforts, both here in North America and in other parts of the world, on our behalf and in particular for his commitment to an honored place for all who hold the historic, catholic theological position concerning the ordained ministry, the church councils, and the sacraments. The Anglican Church in North America is not perfect, nor is it a solution to all our problems, but it is a positive step forward and one that I believe we must take at this particular point in time. It is a new alliance; it is not a new church. It is a structure that enables us to maintain our integrity as an authentic Anglican diocese, as expressed in Article I of our Constitution. It is an affiliation that enables us to continue to be what we have always been – biblical, catholic Christians in the Anglican tradition.
The second resolution on church unity concerns the invitation extended by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America to the inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America in June. He invited us to consider how we Anglicans might be united in common faith and practice with the great spiritual tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and this is a very welcome and historic initiative. Conversations have already begun in pursuit of this goal, on both the national and local levels. In addition to an Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue Committee that has been formed by Archbishop Duncan and Metropolitan Jonah on a national level, we here locally have also formed a dialogue committee for our diocese and the Orthodox Diocese of Dallas and the South. Six Orthodox priests and Metropolitan Jonah have invited me and six priests of this diocese to meet with them to begin this conversation on the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, Monday, November 30th, at St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in Dallas. Please pray for us that this meeting may yield good fruit and prove to be just the beginning of something that glorifies God.
The third resolution involves our relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and it addresses the gracious provision announced by the Vatican just a couple of weeks ago whereby Anglicans may come into full visible communion with the See of Rome. The Apostolic Constitution authorized by Pope Benedict has not yet been released, so many of the details and specifics of this arrangement remain unknown. However, we are told that it is designed in such a way that certain elements of the Anglican patrimony will be preserved. For some time now Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort the Worth and I have been in regular conversations concerning what we have in common and what continues to separate us, as Roman Catholics and orthodox Anglicans. Just a few days prior to this recent announcement from the Vatican, he and I held the first meeting of a local dialogue committee we have appointed to explore our common faith and differences. Our second meeting is to take place on Thursday, Dec. 3. Please pray also for this meeting that the Holy Spirit would bless and guide our conversations. Pray as well for all traditional Anglicans around the world as they too consider how to respond to this historic invitation from the successor to St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
I am well aware that not all of us are in the same place regarding these three conversations and what we expect they might produce. Some have strong preferences for one of these dialogues over the others. I am also aware that in the future these conversations must increasingly involve the laity, not just priests and bishops. After all, the Church is the people of God, not just the clergy. However, if we are to work and pray for the unity of Christ’s Church throughout the world, it must involve all three bodies – Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. These are the three great churches of the catholic tradition, East and West, who though divided for centuries, have maintained the historic faith and order of the Church as expressed in the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic succession of ordained ministry, the sacraments and the creeds. When the New Testament speaks of the need for unity and truth among believers, it is for all members of the Body of Christ. When Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples, it is “that they all may be one.”
I am well aware of the disappointment and disillusionment of many of us with Anglicanism, as well as a deep level of skepticism about the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The proposed Anglican Covenant holds out some hope for improvement in this regard, and that is why we will want to endorse it at this Convention. For those among us who wish to remain Anglicans, the Anglican Church in North America is our best way forward, despite whatever obstacles or frustrations may accompany it. Anglicanism has always been characterized by tolerance, diversity, and a degree of untidiness. Nothing new about that! But it has also proven to be a grace-filled way to live the Christian life that many are unwilling to sacrifice or relinquish.
I am also aware that many of us are not very familiar with the theology and spirituality of the great Orthodox Churches of the Eastern tradition. In some ways they seem not only mysterious, but foreign. In times past, however, there has always been a great affinity and deep friendship between Anglicans and the Orthodox. Both have the tradition of autonomous, national churches, united to the universal church by common faith and practice, while resisting papal supremacy and doctrinal additions made by the Church of Rome. Up until a few years ago, members of the Orthodox Churches were encouraged to worship in the local Episcopal or Anglican church if an Orthodox congregation was not in the area, often even receiving Holy Communion in our churches. Up until recent times, there was a very real hope for the recognition of Anglican orders by the Orthodox and the establishment of full sacramental communion between our two churches. But then came the unprecedented break with the apostolic tradition when the ordination of women as priests was introduced by some Anglicans in 1976, and the Anglican-Orthodox dialogues that held so much promise sadly came to an end. Perhaps God has given us the opportunity to rekindle that relationship and hope in our own time through this renewed dialogue.
Given the make up of this diocese, I am also well aware of differing perspectives among us on how to respond to the recent initiative from Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans who wish to come into full communion with Rome. Some are elated and see this development as an answer to prayer. They are eager to move forward and make it a reality. Some are frightened by what might have to be sacrificed or are cynical about engaging in conversations with Rome on Rome’s conditions alone, or are perhaps uncertain about how certain serious theological differences can be resolved in order to heal the breach. While others among us simply are not interested in becoming Roman Catholics or perhaps would prefer to pursue closer ties with more evangelical or Protestant bodies.
My vocation in the midst of all of this is to be the shepherd and pastor to all of you who are under my spiritual oversight. While it is no secret to anyone that I myself am an ardent Anglo-catholic, I promise to strive in the future, as I have over the past 17 years, to be a faithful bishop, friend and father-in-God to all of you. I will also continue to exercise leadership, not just pastoral care, as God gives me the grace and wisdom to do so, in the days ahead. I believe my leadership has demonstrated that I have been willing to take a stand and make hard decisions when the times have required it. I am saddened when I disappoint any of you, but I learned a long time ago that being a faithful bishop is not a popularity contest.
In my capacity as pastor and leader, it is clear to me that all of us will need more information, more conversation with those with a different perspective, more time and much more prayer and love for one another. We must be patient and charitable with each another as things unfold. We must be willing to wait and see what God will do with all of this. We must respect the fact that we are in different places and that not all of us will move in the same direction or at the same time. Let us first seek God’s guidance, and try to accept His timing as things develop. There are no deadlines or timetables. There is no need to rush or hurry to a decision. By God’s grace, we must be careful in the months and years ahead that as we pursue the cause of deeper unity in the Body of Christ that we do not become further separated from one another in this diocese as a result. We must be on guard against fragmentation and refuse to allow civil war to break out amongst us, with brothers and sisters fighting against members of the same family. It is my fervent hope that in the end, we will do what God calls us to do, together, as one diocese, one body.
Pray for me, and for all our clergy, as I will pray for each of you, that God’s will may be revealed and embraced and joyfully done, above all else. These are exciting and challenging times. By God’s grace, may we continue to stand firm – and indeed move forward -in the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
Thank you, and God bless you.
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
The theme chosen for this year’s Convention is “Standing Firm in the Faith.” It is an allusion to verses in chapter 6 of the Epistle to the Ephesians where St. Paul urges them to continue to stand fast against the powers of evil and for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do this, he reminds them of the need to “put on the whole armor of God,” so that having stood, they might be enabled to continue to stand - firm in the faith they had received.
It is never enough for us as Christians to stand against something – important as it is to oppose all that is evil and false. We must also stand for something – namely the revealed truth of the Christian faith. We must be clear that standing firm in the faith is not something that is static or inactive. It is not simply standing in place. Stand up for Jesus, yes, but don’t stand still! Taking a stand means active engagement in spiritual warfare, evangelism, witnessing, teaching, pastoral care, proclamation and all the rest. Standing firm means mission, outreach and church growth. It means taking the initiative, being on the offense, not just being on the defense in a reactive sort of way.
As a diocese, I am proud to say that we have stood our ground, not only in defense of the Gospel, but also by actively advancing the Kingdom of God. Clearly our work is far from over, and the power of the evil one is great. We must continue to stand boldly in the face of whatever opposition or challenges may confront us. In Jesus, the ultimate victory is won, but the battle is not over. Bishop Samuel Wiley once said: “The Church is the pilgrim people of God, who in the midst of the battle, pause to celebrate the victory.” Having stood in the past, let us renew our resolve to continue to stand firm in the faith once delivered to the saints, without compromise or surrender.
By God’s grace, we are called to build upon and expand what others have accomplished before us. Faithfulness, steadfastness, firmness have characterized this Diocese since our beginning twenty-seven years ago. We have followed in the brave footsteps of some wonderful Christian men and women who have gone before us. We are the beneficiaries of their labors. In particular, I am mindful of four great priestly soldiers of Christ who have died this past year and gone on to their reward. We are forever indebted to them for all they contributed to the life and witness of this diocese for many, many years. They were indeed exceptional priests who deeply enriched and blessed this diocese through their ministry and service: The Rev. Canon James P. DeWolfe, Jr., the Rev. William R. Belury, the Rev. Canon Laurens R. Williams, and the Rev. Canon Dr. John H. Heidt. We thank God for them. They will be deeply missed. I ask you to stand to honor and remember them in a moment of silence. “May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.”
Since this past April, the threat of a lawsuit has been hanging over us, seeking to distract us from our mission and make us anxious about the future. As you know, the small minority who separated from us in order to remain in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America has not been content with our willingness to give them their buildings and property – they want ours as well! It has been and will continue to be a huge distraction and a great drain on time, energy and resources. I have tried to keep all of you informed, while at the same time not being preoccupied with the litigation, as it has developed. Our focus must be on the mission of the Church, not the lawsuit. Sad to say, there is no end in sight. Once there is a decision by the court, whichever side loses will surely file an appeal, with the likelihood of another appeal after that. So we are talking years, not months, before this whole matter is resolved. I can assure you that we are being very well represented by our attorneys, and I ask that you continue to pray for them as they go about their work, especially our lead attorney, Shelby Sharpe. I am certain that he would want me to remind you, however, that our hope and trust is in God alone, not our legal team. We are engaged in spiritual warfare, as well as a legal battle. I would also remind you that no diocesan funds or parish assessments are going toward our legal expenses. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, all of our legal fees are being paid by special gifts. For this, we are sincerely and deeply grateful, and we say a word of heartfelt thanks at this time.
As the lawsuit makes its way through the courts, we must continue to focus on the mission of the church, to go make disciples of all nations and to minister in the name of Christ to all who are in need. We are called to be a missionary and evangelistic church, as well as a ministering and serving church. But the work of the church is always hampered and weakened by divisions among us. So now more than ever, we must work and pray for the unity of the Church of God. Christ wills for his disciples to be one, and we must do all we can to heal the brokenness in the Body of Christ. It is not enough to simply maintain the historic biblical faith for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We must also share it with others, in order to bring the whole world to Christ. And this work must be done in concert with others, never alone. So let us work and pray for a deeper unity in Christ for all believers, for the sake of mission, that the world may believe.
One of the big highlights of this Convention is our great joy in welcoming into our diocese five new congregations. This is unprecedented in the history of the diocese! So let us greet with joy and thanksgiving those churches joining our diocese today: St. Francis in Dallas, St. Matthias in Dallas, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, St. Gabriel’s in Springdale, Arkansas, and our newly founded mission church here in Fort Worth – Christ the Redeemer. Please join me in giving them again a warm Fort Worth welcome in a round of applause. I am pleased to report that we are in the process of exploring new mission stations in a variety of other locations, both in Texas and beyond, and that we expect to continue to add new congregations to the diocese in the years ahead.
Exciting possibilities are before us as we work for the unity of the Church, and there are three resolutions before us at this Convention that address this concern. The first is a resolution concerning the Anglican Church in North America. Here we seek unity with orthodox Anglicans who have separated from The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, while maintaining our membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion by our temporary affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone. We are indeed deeply grateful to Archbishop Greg Venables for taking us into his fold and for providing primatial oversight and protection for us as this new province emerges in North America. While recognizing continuing theological differences among us, which has always been the case among Anglicans, this movement is a realignment that attempts “to maintain the highest degree of communion possible” with orthodox Anglicans around the world, as well as with the Archbishop of Canterbury. We are also grateful to Archbishop Robert Duncan for his tireless efforts, both here in North America and in other parts of the world, on our behalf and in particular for his commitment to an honored place for all who hold the historic, catholic theological position concerning the ordained ministry, the church councils, and the sacraments. The Anglican Church in North America is not perfect, nor is it a solution to all our problems, but it is a positive step forward and one that I believe we must take at this particular point in time. It is a new alliance; it is not a new church. It is a structure that enables us to maintain our integrity as an authentic Anglican diocese, as expressed in Article I of our Constitution. It is an affiliation that enables us to continue to be what we have always been – biblical, catholic Christians in the Anglican tradition.
The second resolution on church unity concerns the invitation extended by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America to the inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America in June. He invited us to consider how we Anglicans might be united in common faith and practice with the great spiritual tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and this is a very welcome and historic initiative. Conversations have already begun in pursuit of this goal, on both the national and local levels. In addition to an Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue Committee that has been formed by Archbishop Duncan and Metropolitan Jonah on a national level, we here locally have also formed a dialogue committee for our diocese and the Orthodox Diocese of Dallas and the South. Six Orthodox priests and Metropolitan Jonah have invited me and six priests of this diocese to meet with them to begin this conversation on the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, Monday, November 30th, at St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in Dallas. Please pray for us that this meeting may yield good fruit and prove to be just the beginning of something that glorifies God.
The third resolution involves our relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and it addresses the gracious provision announced by the Vatican just a couple of weeks ago whereby Anglicans may come into full visible communion with the See of Rome. The Apostolic Constitution authorized by Pope Benedict has not yet been released, so many of the details and specifics of this arrangement remain unknown. However, we are told that it is designed in such a way that certain elements of the Anglican patrimony will be preserved. For some time now Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort the Worth and I have been in regular conversations concerning what we have in common and what continues to separate us, as Roman Catholics and orthodox Anglicans. Just a few days prior to this recent announcement from the Vatican, he and I held the first meeting of a local dialogue committee we have appointed to explore our common faith and differences. Our second meeting is to take place on Thursday, Dec. 3. Please pray also for this meeting that the Holy Spirit would bless and guide our conversations. Pray as well for all traditional Anglicans around the world as they too consider how to respond to this historic invitation from the successor to St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
I am well aware that not all of us are in the same place regarding these three conversations and what we expect they might produce. Some have strong preferences for one of these dialogues over the others. I am also aware that in the future these conversations must increasingly involve the laity, not just priests and bishops. After all, the Church is the people of God, not just the clergy. However, if we are to work and pray for the unity of Christ’s Church throughout the world, it must involve all three bodies – Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. These are the three great churches of the catholic tradition, East and West, who though divided for centuries, have maintained the historic faith and order of the Church as expressed in the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic succession of ordained ministry, the sacraments and the creeds. When the New Testament speaks of the need for unity and truth among believers, it is for all members of the Body of Christ. When Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples, it is “that they all may be one.”
I am well aware of the disappointment and disillusionment of many of us with Anglicanism, as well as a deep level of skepticism about the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The proposed Anglican Covenant holds out some hope for improvement in this regard, and that is why we will want to endorse it at this Convention. For those among us who wish to remain Anglicans, the Anglican Church in North America is our best way forward, despite whatever obstacles or frustrations may accompany it. Anglicanism has always been characterized by tolerance, diversity, and a degree of untidiness. Nothing new about that! But it has also proven to be a grace-filled way to live the Christian life that many are unwilling to sacrifice or relinquish.
I am also aware that many of us are not very familiar with the theology and spirituality of the great Orthodox Churches of the Eastern tradition. In some ways they seem not only mysterious, but foreign. In times past, however, there has always been a great affinity and deep friendship between Anglicans and the Orthodox. Both have the tradition of autonomous, national churches, united to the universal church by common faith and practice, while resisting papal supremacy and doctrinal additions made by the Church of Rome. Up until a few years ago, members of the Orthodox Churches were encouraged to worship in the local Episcopal or Anglican church if an Orthodox congregation was not in the area, often even receiving Holy Communion in our churches. Up until recent times, there was a very real hope for the recognition of Anglican orders by the Orthodox and the establishment of full sacramental communion between our two churches. But then came the unprecedented break with the apostolic tradition when the ordination of women as priests was introduced by some Anglicans in 1976, and the Anglican-Orthodox dialogues that held so much promise sadly came to an end. Perhaps God has given us the opportunity to rekindle that relationship and hope in our own time through this renewed dialogue.
Given the make up of this diocese, I am also well aware of differing perspectives among us on how to respond to the recent initiative from Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans who wish to come into full communion with Rome. Some are elated and see this development as an answer to prayer. They are eager to move forward and make it a reality. Some are frightened by what might have to be sacrificed or are cynical about engaging in conversations with Rome on Rome’s conditions alone, or are perhaps uncertain about how certain serious theological differences can be resolved in order to heal the breach. While others among us simply are not interested in becoming Roman Catholics or perhaps would prefer to pursue closer ties with more evangelical or Protestant bodies.
My vocation in the midst of all of this is to be the shepherd and pastor to all of you who are under my spiritual oversight. While it is no secret to anyone that I myself am an ardent Anglo-catholic, I promise to strive in the future, as I have over the past 17 years, to be a faithful bishop, friend and father-in-God to all of you. I will also continue to exercise leadership, not just pastoral care, as God gives me the grace and wisdom to do so, in the days ahead. I believe my leadership has demonstrated that I have been willing to take a stand and make hard decisions when the times have required it. I am saddened when I disappoint any of you, but I learned a long time ago that being a faithful bishop is not a popularity contest.
In my capacity as pastor and leader, it is clear to me that all of us will need more information, more conversation with those with a different perspective, more time and much more prayer and love for one another. We must be patient and charitable with each another as things unfold. We must be willing to wait and see what God will do with all of this. We must respect the fact that we are in different places and that not all of us will move in the same direction or at the same time. Let us first seek God’s guidance, and try to accept His timing as things develop. There are no deadlines or timetables. There is no need to rush or hurry to a decision. By God’s grace, we must be careful in the months and years ahead that as we pursue the cause of deeper unity in the Body of Christ that we do not become further separated from one another in this diocese as a result. We must be on guard against fragmentation and refuse to allow civil war to break out amongst us, with brothers and sisters fighting against members of the same family. It is my fervent hope that in the end, we will do what God calls us to do, together, as one diocese, one body.
Pray for me, and for all our clergy, as I will pray for each of you, that God’s will may be revealed and embraced and joyfully done, above all else. These are exciting and challenging times. By God’s grace, may we continue to stand firm – and indeed move forward -in the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
pecusa's defense
The following quote is from the article in the next post. It is pecusa's judgement on the realignment of Anglicanism in North America. What is silly about this line of reasoning is that the realignment is growing by thousands each year while pecusa is declining by tens of thousands each year. In some places the growth in the Anglican Church in North America, the new province, is double digit. Kind of makes one wonder about pecusa's vision of reality. ed.
"Divorce breeds divorce." Bishop Persell, viewing the scene from the perspective of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, draws an even stronger conclusion: "If you're formed in opposition and negativity, you're bound to keep on splitting--there's always need for more purity, and you don't live with ambiguity very well, so you end up in a church of one."
"Divorce breeds divorce." Bishop Persell, viewing the scene from the perspective of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, draws an even stronger conclusion: "If you're formed in opposition and negativity, you're bound to keep on splitting--there's always need for more purity, and you don't live with ambiguity very well, so you end up in a church of one."
Splitting up: Anglican angst
I missed this article last year. It is about Anglicanism in the western suburbs of Chicago and includes information about a parish I once served, St. Mark's in Glen Ellyn, IL. ed.
Christian Century, May 20, 2008 by Jason Byassee
LAST YEAR THE Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in nearby Glen Ellyn. The new congregation later aligned itself with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), which is connected to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.
The new Church of the Resurrection later experienced its own split, with some members leaving to launch the Church of the Great Shepherd--also affiliated with AMIA--in Wheaton. The Church of the Great Shepherd eventually closed its doors, but not before a 2004 split led to the formation of the Church of the Savior back in West Chicago. During this time the ranks of St. Mark's, an Episcopal congregation in Glen Ellyn, had been swelling--until the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003, whereupon many St. Mark's members left to form All Souls, still another AMIA church, in Wheaton. Meanwhile, another split at the original Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, which had experienced renewed growth, led to the creation of the Church of the Resurrection Anglican, a church which is overseen by the archbishop of Uganda. So now there are two Resurrection churches in the area, both formed in exodus from the original--now defunct--Church of the Resurrection, and both affiliated with African Anglican bodies, not with the Episcopal Church in the United States, sometimes abbreviated as TEC.
Got all that?
Even for Anglicans in the vicinity it takes a long memory or a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal-Anglican divisions and acronyms that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, just west of Chicago.
Many observers of the Anglican splits assume that the key issue is homosexuality, but a closer look reveals that several other factors are also at work. In fact, the local Anglican story is largely about charismatic leaders coming and going, and congregations growing in their presence or folding in their absence. Among the AMIA folks, the juiciest disagreements have been over the ordination of women rather than the ordination of gays. And the biggest fight to date has been over the relationship between church and state in Rwanda, not in the U.S.
The energy in all these churches comes to a great extent from the many evangelicals who have converted to Anglicanism, a phenomenon outlined some 20 years ago by Robert Webber in Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail. For the most part, evangelicals joined the Episcopal Church out of an appreciation for its liturgy and tradition, not for its generally liberal approach to sexual ethics and scripture. Many of these people have an association with evangelically oriented Wheaton College, where Webber taught for many years.
The various conservative groups that have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the U.S. have conglomerated into Common Cause, a group that has formed an alliance with churches in the global South in an effort to reverse the long liberal trend of the Anglican Communion in the Northern Hemisphere. Its advocates champion a thesis advanced by historian Philip Jenkins and others: Christianity's axis of power is tilting south and east, with church membership growing rapidly in the developing world while it declines in Europe and America. The late Diane Knippers, a leader among conservative Anglicans, summarized the situation this way: "Today's statistically typical Anglican is not drinking tea in an English vicarage. She is a 26-year-old African mother of four."
And, Knippers might have added, the typical Anglican is strongly opposed to homosexuality. One of the leaders of Common Cause is Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who readily uses the word abomination in reference to homosexuality. He likens homosexuality in the church to a "cancerous lump," compares same-sex coupling to animal behavior, and supports severe prison sentences for homosexual practice.
The alliance that conservative Anglicans in the U.S. have made with African Anglicans presents an unusual challenge to the liberal Episcopalian mainstream. It's hard to accuse AMIA members of being bigoted malcontents when they are, in effect, members of African churches. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference of world Anglican leaders, John Shelby Spong, the now retired uber-liberal bishop of Newark, dismissed his African colleagues who were adamantly opposed to liberalizing the church's rules on homosexuality as "superstitious, fundamentalist Christians." In remarks that have been frequently cited by his detractors, Spong complained that African Anglicans had "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity" and had yet to face "the intellectual revolution of Copernicus and Einstein that we've had to face in the developing world." For AMIA and its friends, here was evidence that white so-called progressives were the real bigots.
You can read the rest of the article at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_10_125/ai_n25453426/
Christian Century, May 20, 2008 by Jason Byassee
LAST YEAR THE Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in nearby Glen Ellyn. The new congregation later aligned itself with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), which is connected to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.
The new Church of the Resurrection later experienced its own split, with some members leaving to launch the Church of the Great Shepherd--also affiliated with AMIA--in Wheaton. The Church of the Great Shepherd eventually closed its doors, but not before a 2004 split led to the formation of the Church of the Savior back in West Chicago. During this time the ranks of St. Mark's, an Episcopal congregation in Glen Ellyn, had been swelling--until the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003, whereupon many St. Mark's members left to form All Souls, still another AMIA church, in Wheaton. Meanwhile, another split at the original Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, which had experienced renewed growth, led to the creation of the Church of the Resurrection Anglican, a church which is overseen by the archbishop of Uganda. So now there are two Resurrection churches in the area, both formed in exodus from the original--now defunct--Church of the Resurrection, and both affiliated with African Anglican bodies, not with the Episcopal Church in the United States, sometimes abbreviated as TEC.
Got all that?
Even for Anglicans in the vicinity it takes a long memory or a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal-Anglican divisions and acronyms that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, just west of Chicago.
Many observers of the Anglican splits assume that the key issue is homosexuality, but a closer look reveals that several other factors are also at work. In fact, the local Anglican story is largely about charismatic leaders coming and going, and congregations growing in their presence or folding in their absence. Among the AMIA folks, the juiciest disagreements have been over the ordination of women rather than the ordination of gays. And the biggest fight to date has been over the relationship between church and state in Rwanda, not in the U.S.
The energy in all these churches comes to a great extent from the many evangelicals who have converted to Anglicanism, a phenomenon outlined some 20 years ago by Robert Webber in Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail. For the most part, evangelicals joined the Episcopal Church out of an appreciation for its liturgy and tradition, not for its generally liberal approach to sexual ethics and scripture. Many of these people have an association with evangelically oriented Wheaton College, where Webber taught for many years.
The various conservative groups that have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the U.S. have conglomerated into Common Cause, a group that has formed an alliance with churches in the global South in an effort to reverse the long liberal trend of the Anglican Communion in the Northern Hemisphere. Its advocates champion a thesis advanced by historian Philip Jenkins and others: Christianity's axis of power is tilting south and east, with church membership growing rapidly in the developing world while it declines in Europe and America. The late Diane Knippers, a leader among conservative Anglicans, summarized the situation this way: "Today's statistically typical Anglican is not drinking tea in an English vicarage. She is a 26-year-old African mother of four."
And, Knippers might have added, the typical Anglican is strongly opposed to homosexuality. One of the leaders of Common Cause is Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who readily uses the word abomination in reference to homosexuality. He likens homosexuality in the church to a "cancerous lump," compares same-sex coupling to animal behavior, and supports severe prison sentences for homosexual practice.
The alliance that conservative Anglicans in the U.S. have made with African Anglicans presents an unusual challenge to the liberal Episcopalian mainstream. It's hard to accuse AMIA members of being bigoted malcontents when they are, in effect, members of African churches. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference of world Anglican leaders, John Shelby Spong, the now retired uber-liberal bishop of Newark, dismissed his African colleagues who were adamantly opposed to liberalizing the church's rules on homosexuality as "superstitious, fundamentalist Christians." In remarks that have been frequently cited by his detractors, Spong complained that African Anglicans had "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity" and had yet to face "the intellectual revolution of Copernicus and Einstein that we've had to face in the developing world." For AMIA and its friends, here was evidence that white so-called progressives were the real bigots.
You can read the rest of the article at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_10_125/ai_n25453426/
Friday, November 06, 2009
The Maine Vote for Marriage
Gay Marriage has been on the ballot in 31 states and 31 times it has lost. ed.
From RealClearPolitics.com via Stand Firm:
November 5, 2009
By Maggie Gallagher
On Election Day this past Tuesday, the people of Maine voted to repeal gay marriage, 53 percent to 47 percent.
Gay-marriage advocates are bitterly disappointed. They spent three years building an organization to push gay marriage in Maine. They had every major newspaper and most other media on their side, as well as the political establishment -- the governor, the attorney general, the head of the schools. They were awash in money, out-fundraising pro-marriage advocates by more than 50 percent. (Full disclosure: The National Organization for Marriage contributed $1.8 million to the Yes on One campaign -- or more than half the campaign budget.)
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California Maine
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Gay-marriage advocates in Maine had the benefit of learning from California. They ran the kind of campaign critics claim would have won Proposition 8: No on One ads featured happy gay families, and rebuttal ads to Yes on One claims came quickly. There are not very many Mormons in Maine, or black people, either, so they cannot blame this loss on either minority group. Maine is a deep blue state, socially liberal and relatively secular, and close to Massachusetts, where people have presumably learned "the sky doesn't fall" after gay marriage becomes law.
And yet people in Maine in a free and fair election decisively rejected gay marriage by an even bigger margin than in California.
Here's the first thing this victory means: The $4 million spent to pass gay marriage in Maine was wasted. Even Americans in liberal states do not believe that two guys pledged to a gay union are a marriage. Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters.
Americans have a great deal of goodwill toward gay people as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. Most of us do not want to hurt them or hate them or interfere with anyone's legitimate rights to live as they choose. But we do not believe gay marriage is a civil right; we think it is a civil wrong. And we do not appreciate the increasingly intense efforts to punish people who disagree with gay marriage as if we were racists, bigots, discriminators or haters.
Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in a TV ad for the Yes on One campaign in the closing days of the contest. If substantiated, the ethics complaint could lead the government to yank his license as a social worker and, therefore, threaten his livelihood. What kind of movement spurs people to act like this? Meanwhile, a teacher of the year who campaigned for gay marriage faces no such threat to her livelihood. Is gay marriage really about love and tolerance for all?
The people of Maine are certainly entitled to wonder.
Over in New York, the collapse of Dede Scozzafava is another big story. Scozzafava was handpicked to become the first openly pro-gay marriage Republican in a district where the vast majority of Republicans and independents (and even a big chunk of Democrats) oppose gay marriage.
A National Organization of marriage poll of likely voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District revealed that fully 50 percent of her opponent's supporters said that Scozzafava's vote for gay marriage was a factor in their decision not to support her.
NOM spent more than $100,000 sending 160,000 pieces of mail to voters who oppose gay marriage, and it also made more than 250,000 automated and live calls to make sure these voters knew that Scozzafava voted for gay marriage. Executive director Brian Brown has his own take on what happened in the 23rd district:
"This should be a wake-up call to GOP politicians who think they can play clever insider games and cut special deals on the marriage issue: It's not going to work. The voters are not on your side."
Indeed.
MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com
Maggie Gallagher is president of the National Organization for Marriage and has been a syndicated columnist for 14 years.
From RealClearPolitics.com via Stand Firm:
November 5, 2009
By Maggie Gallagher
On Election Day this past Tuesday, the people of Maine voted to repeal gay marriage, 53 percent to 47 percent.
Gay-marriage advocates are bitterly disappointed. They spent three years building an organization to push gay marriage in Maine. They had every major newspaper and most other media on their side, as well as the political establishment -- the governor, the attorney general, the head of the schools. They were awash in money, out-fundraising pro-marriage advocates by more than 50 percent. (Full disclosure: The National Organization for Marriage contributed $1.8 million to the Yes on One campaign -- or more than half the campaign budget.)
RECEIVE NEWS ALERTS
SIGN UP
Maggie Gallagher RealClearPolitics
California Maine
[+] More
Gay-marriage advocates in Maine had the benefit of learning from California. They ran the kind of campaign critics claim would have won Proposition 8: No on One ads featured happy gay families, and rebuttal ads to Yes on One claims came quickly. There are not very many Mormons in Maine, or black people, either, so they cannot blame this loss on either minority group. Maine is a deep blue state, socially liberal and relatively secular, and close to Massachusetts, where people have presumably learned "the sky doesn't fall" after gay marriage becomes law.
And yet people in Maine in a free and fair election decisively rejected gay marriage by an even bigger margin than in California.
Here's the first thing this victory means: The $4 million spent to pass gay marriage in Maine was wasted. Even Americans in liberal states do not believe that two guys pledged to a gay union are a marriage. Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters.
Americans have a great deal of goodwill toward gay people as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. Most of us do not want to hurt them or hate them or interfere with anyone's legitimate rights to live as they choose. But we do not believe gay marriage is a civil right; we think it is a civil wrong. And we do not appreciate the increasingly intense efforts to punish people who disagree with gay marriage as if we were racists, bigots, discriminators or haters.
Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in a TV ad for the Yes on One campaign in the closing days of the contest. If substantiated, the ethics complaint could lead the government to yank his license as a social worker and, therefore, threaten his livelihood. What kind of movement spurs people to act like this? Meanwhile, a teacher of the year who campaigned for gay marriage faces no such threat to her livelihood. Is gay marriage really about love and tolerance for all?
The people of Maine are certainly entitled to wonder.
Over in New York, the collapse of Dede Scozzafava is another big story. Scozzafava was handpicked to become the first openly pro-gay marriage Republican in a district where the vast majority of Republicans and independents (and even a big chunk of Democrats) oppose gay marriage.
A National Organization of marriage poll of likely voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District revealed that fully 50 percent of her opponent's supporters said that Scozzafava's vote for gay marriage was a factor in their decision not to support her.
NOM spent more than $100,000 sending 160,000 pieces of mail to voters who oppose gay marriage, and it also made more than 250,000 automated and live calls to make sure these voters knew that Scozzafava voted for gay marriage. Executive director Brian Brown has his own take on what happened in the 23rd district:
"This should be a wake-up call to GOP politicians who think they can play clever insider games and cut special deals on the marriage issue: It's not going to work. The voters are not on your side."
Indeed.
MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com
Maggie Gallagher is president of the National Organization for Marriage and has been a syndicated columnist for 14 years.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Episcopal Dioceses Face Downsizing, Closing Parishes, More Departures
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
November 4, 2009
A number of congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine are on the brink of bankruptcy with over 50% of its parishes receiving grants-in-aid. This has lead to the curtailing of funding for mission programming at the diocesan level and no money left to support the buildings or their budgets.
The Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane, in an address to his diocese, said that several of his congregations face "literal bankruptcy" and that tweaking the system and the budget will no longer work. He argued that what is needed is something he called "Adaptive Change."
"What we're always trying to do is tweak the system, tweak the budget, so it works a little better, a little more efficiently. We're always trying to build a better mouse trap or give ourselves a little more breathing room. We're trying to make the old system work as well as it possibly can work. But what if things have changed so much that the system itself no longer will serve? What if we've squeezed every penny out of every dollar? What if, instead of tweaking the system, we have to adapt to the change? What if we have to build a new system? What if we have to learn a new way to be church? That work is called Adaptive Change."
Lane said that every congregation he visited was engaged, to some degree, in Technical Change. He admitted, "I think we've about run out the string. We can't continue for long with over 50% of our congregations receiving grants-in-aid."
Lane said that the diocesan budget would be smaller this year than in over in a decade. "Many of our congregations are struggling with buildings that need a great deal of work and cost far too much to heat. The average age in many congregations continues to rise and the average attendance continues to decline. And people ask me every week, why don't my children come to church? How can we get young families back to church? How can we bring teenagers into our church? How can we find a new generation to take the load off our backs?
"How can we get our old church back so we can retire in peace with a good conscience? I think the answer to our questions is beyond a technical fix. I think we need to be a new church."
Lane admitted that an effort to bring together clergy and lay leaders to a conference to address a plan to rescue the diocese failed. The "wise heads" gathered for the conference weren't fully satisfied with the plan and didn't know if they wanted to volunteer for the work. A number of them decided not to volunteer, he wrote. The bishop said that as a result of the failure to deal with the failing diocese, "it may mean some congregations seeing themselves as ministry sites rather than worship sites. It may mean new ways of calling and paying clergy. It may mean deeper ecumenical and community partnerships - shared facilities and shared clergy. It may mean a return to circuit riders and house churches. It may mean - probably does mean - solutions I can't imagine."
Lane described the situation as "urgent" saying that he was in conversation with several congregations who can no longer afford their budgets or their buildings, and who are facing literal bankruptcy.
DIOCESE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
From the Diocese of Western Massachusetts comes word that church building closures are a common theme this year. Bishop Gordon Scruton observed that closing churches is an expensive business, and there is no ready market for such churches.
The bishop admitted that the diocese could no longer afford to keep and maintain the diocesan church camp called Bement. "We have also had to face the reality that we are not able to maintain all our church buildings. The Church has far too many buildings that have ceased to serve a useful purpose. In the last century, before the days of the automobile, many churches were built too close to one another, and today they are struggling for survival. Often one would suffice where two or three now exist because they are only a few minutes apart by automobile. We must begin to think in terms of combining such churches, having team ministries, or, in cases where budgets are small, having them staffed by clergy who during much of the week are engaged in secular employment. All of this is going to involve some bold and farsighted re-thinking in the near future.
"I would urge all of our people to get over the idea that the Church is a building. It is not a building at all. Instead, a Church is people, and it exists whether they meet in an ecclesiastical structure or in a storefront or in somebody's home. The place of meeting is not all-important and the sooner we accept this the freer we shall be to plan constructively for the future. Small struggling churches located not far from other Episcopal churches, will have to be combined....It is very important that we face this realistically and prepare now for an orderly change instead of drifting planlessly into a future that we are afraid to confront." Scruton admitted that over this past year, the diocese has began to talk more openly about the reality that there are more church buildings than can be supported. The bishop cited the 125-year old St. John's church in Worcester, which closed because the people came to recognize and accept their lack of energy, money and people to carry on the ministry of the congregation. The organ of St. John's will provide music for St. Michael's in Worcester. The Iglesia Cristiana Natanael will continue worshipping at St John's with the bishop tacitly acknowledging that another congregation will soon rent St. John's building with the possibility of purchase.
Scruton said that closing a congregation requires an enormous amount of time, energy and money on the part of a congregation and diocesan staff. "It is expensive and time consuming to maintain empty church buildings when there is no congregation there to oversee those responsibilities. The architecture and real estate market make it difficult to sell church buildings. In the future, closing a congregation will impact all the parishes of the diocese through shared expenses in our diocesan budget."
The bishop hinted broadly that the closing of Bement and St. John's impacted the diocese financially and "raised strategic questions about the future of our ministry in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts."
The bishop said he sent a Pastoral Mission Letter to the whole diocese inviting it to reflect on the "sobering challenges we are facing" and "to explore the creative new opportunities for ministry that God's Spirit is opening for us in our new situation." The letter, he said, generated much discussion across the diocese. "Berkshire County wardens and clergy have gathered for three Summits to explore moving from isolated ministry to cooperative ministries. Churches in the South Berkshires are experimenting with new creative ways of working together. The Adams and North Adams congregations have entered into a covenant to discern how God is calling them to walk together. They worship as one congregation twice a month. In North Worcester, clergy and wardens have also held three Summits to explore possibilities of sharing ministry in that region. Other congregations across the diocese are beginning to initiate conversations about ways of sharing ministry. These conversations are a grass roots movement of the Holy Spirit. We will need to keep nurturing these regional conversations and creative partnerships as the context out of which God will guide us to new configurations of ministry in this new mission situation."
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
In the Diocese of Western New York, outgoing Bishop Michael Garrison discovered, much to his surprise, that he could not afford to support a church plant meeting in the vacated St. Bartholomew's property. Last year St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church ceased to exist. The congregation, the largest in the diocese and thoroughly orthodox, bought an old synagogue and became St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church. Of course Garrison could have cut a deal with the departing parish but chose not to. They left the property and now he has to sell it. The community of St. Peter's in Forestville announced that they have left The Episcopal Church denuding the diocese of much needed income. The bishop then admitted that many parishes are in financial difficulty and that the diocese will need to reduce the number of church buildings in the next few years. His retirement will be a blessing in this case. His successor will have the "joy" of closing more parishes. "In the last few months I have met with vestries and leaders of a number of our parishes who are experiencing financial difficulties. The financial crisis we experience in our nation and world exacerbates and highlights this difficulty. In many parishes the trouble has been brought on by an over dependence on endowments. The leadership of our congregations needs to be wise and prudent in these matters. All of us are called upon to live within our means. "We also need to ask ourselves over the next few years, if we can any longer support the number of church buildings in which our community worships."
Is juncturing with another diocese in their future?
DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY
The Rt. Rev. George Councell, Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey has carried a particular piece of advice with him throughout his career delivering Masses in New Jersey: Say each as if it were your first, say it as if it were your last, say it as if it were your only Mass.
That outlook gave Councell something of an emotional advantage over the rank-and-file parishioners of Fair Haven's Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion recently. That was the day Councell came to preside over the congregation's last-ever Mass.
After 125 years of service, the towering River Road landmark was closed for good following the afternoon service. The church and two buildings on the property are owned by the diocese, and will likely be put on the market, according to Councell.
But Councell was angry at the closure and he spoke his mind, "I am very disappointed with the lack of support for one of my Churches. This trend had better stop or I will make life on earth not as enjoyable as it has been for most of you. Go to one of the other local churches this weekend and double your donations so we can collect the funds necessary to reopen this most Holy of Houses. Remember I am watching all of you, so don't disappoint."
DIOCESE OF WESTERN LOUISIANA
At the Diocese of Western Louisiana's Thirtieth Annual Diocesan Convention, the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson publicly admitted that the diocese could lose parishes following GC2009's Resolution actions. In his address to the diocese, the orthodox bishop hinted broadly that the diocese could not serve two masters. "We could well be faced with making a choice of being either provincially oriented or Communion oriented - for it is clear we cannot be both."
Describing the situation as "uncertain," he said, "We cannot claim to be part of a catholic body and then seek to exercise 'local option' over crucial issues."
He further acknowledged that there were some in the diocese who are taking a more formal step by looking towards separation.
New Jersey bishop George Councell, summed it up by saying that there are some things worse than death. "One of them is denial. Resurrection follows death, not denial," he said.
The Episcopal Church denial about the direction of the church and its advocacy and passage of a series of pansexual resolutions by general convention has only heightened rebellion amongst the church's rank and file. The rejection of personal faith by Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and the go-it-alone mentality by TEC among the Communion's archbishops has resulted in the birth of a new orthodox North American Anglican province.
END
www.virtueonline.org
November 4, 2009
A number of congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine are on the brink of bankruptcy with over 50% of its parishes receiving grants-in-aid. This has lead to the curtailing of funding for mission programming at the diocesan level and no money left to support the buildings or their budgets.
The Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane, in an address to his diocese, said that several of his congregations face "literal bankruptcy" and that tweaking the system and the budget will no longer work. He argued that what is needed is something he called "Adaptive Change."
"What we're always trying to do is tweak the system, tweak the budget, so it works a little better, a little more efficiently. We're always trying to build a better mouse trap or give ourselves a little more breathing room. We're trying to make the old system work as well as it possibly can work. But what if things have changed so much that the system itself no longer will serve? What if we've squeezed every penny out of every dollar? What if, instead of tweaking the system, we have to adapt to the change? What if we have to build a new system? What if we have to learn a new way to be church? That work is called Adaptive Change."
Lane said that every congregation he visited was engaged, to some degree, in Technical Change. He admitted, "I think we've about run out the string. We can't continue for long with over 50% of our congregations receiving grants-in-aid."
Lane said that the diocesan budget would be smaller this year than in over in a decade. "Many of our congregations are struggling with buildings that need a great deal of work and cost far too much to heat. The average age in many congregations continues to rise and the average attendance continues to decline. And people ask me every week, why don't my children come to church? How can we get young families back to church? How can we bring teenagers into our church? How can we find a new generation to take the load off our backs?
"How can we get our old church back so we can retire in peace with a good conscience? I think the answer to our questions is beyond a technical fix. I think we need to be a new church."
Lane admitted that an effort to bring together clergy and lay leaders to a conference to address a plan to rescue the diocese failed. The "wise heads" gathered for the conference weren't fully satisfied with the plan and didn't know if they wanted to volunteer for the work. A number of them decided not to volunteer, he wrote. The bishop said that as a result of the failure to deal with the failing diocese, "it may mean some congregations seeing themselves as ministry sites rather than worship sites. It may mean new ways of calling and paying clergy. It may mean deeper ecumenical and community partnerships - shared facilities and shared clergy. It may mean a return to circuit riders and house churches. It may mean - probably does mean - solutions I can't imagine."
Lane described the situation as "urgent" saying that he was in conversation with several congregations who can no longer afford their budgets or their buildings, and who are facing literal bankruptcy.
DIOCESE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
From the Diocese of Western Massachusetts comes word that church building closures are a common theme this year. Bishop Gordon Scruton observed that closing churches is an expensive business, and there is no ready market for such churches.
The bishop admitted that the diocese could no longer afford to keep and maintain the diocesan church camp called Bement. "We have also had to face the reality that we are not able to maintain all our church buildings. The Church has far too many buildings that have ceased to serve a useful purpose. In the last century, before the days of the automobile, many churches were built too close to one another, and today they are struggling for survival. Often one would suffice where two or three now exist because they are only a few minutes apart by automobile. We must begin to think in terms of combining such churches, having team ministries, or, in cases where budgets are small, having them staffed by clergy who during much of the week are engaged in secular employment. All of this is going to involve some bold and farsighted re-thinking in the near future.
"I would urge all of our people to get over the idea that the Church is a building. It is not a building at all. Instead, a Church is people, and it exists whether they meet in an ecclesiastical structure or in a storefront or in somebody's home. The place of meeting is not all-important and the sooner we accept this the freer we shall be to plan constructively for the future. Small struggling churches located not far from other Episcopal churches, will have to be combined....It is very important that we face this realistically and prepare now for an orderly change instead of drifting planlessly into a future that we are afraid to confront." Scruton admitted that over this past year, the diocese has began to talk more openly about the reality that there are more church buildings than can be supported. The bishop cited the 125-year old St. John's church in Worcester, which closed because the people came to recognize and accept their lack of energy, money and people to carry on the ministry of the congregation. The organ of St. John's will provide music for St. Michael's in Worcester. The Iglesia Cristiana Natanael will continue worshipping at St John's with the bishop tacitly acknowledging that another congregation will soon rent St. John's building with the possibility of purchase.
Scruton said that closing a congregation requires an enormous amount of time, energy and money on the part of a congregation and diocesan staff. "It is expensive and time consuming to maintain empty church buildings when there is no congregation there to oversee those responsibilities. The architecture and real estate market make it difficult to sell church buildings. In the future, closing a congregation will impact all the parishes of the diocese through shared expenses in our diocesan budget."
The bishop hinted broadly that the closing of Bement and St. John's impacted the diocese financially and "raised strategic questions about the future of our ministry in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts."
The bishop said he sent a Pastoral Mission Letter to the whole diocese inviting it to reflect on the "sobering challenges we are facing" and "to explore the creative new opportunities for ministry that God's Spirit is opening for us in our new situation." The letter, he said, generated much discussion across the diocese. "Berkshire County wardens and clergy have gathered for three Summits to explore moving from isolated ministry to cooperative ministries. Churches in the South Berkshires are experimenting with new creative ways of working together. The Adams and North Adams congregations have entered into a covenant to discern how God is calling them to walk together. They worship as one congregation twice a month. In North Worcester, clergy and wardens have also held three Summits to explore possibilities of sharing ministry in that region. Other congregations across the diocese are beginning to initiate conversations about ways of sharing ministry. These conversations are a grass roots movement of the Holy Spirit. We will need to keep nurturing these regional conversations and creative partnerships as the context out of which God will guide us to new configurations of ministry in this new mission situation."
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
In the Diocese of Western New York, outgoing Bishop Michael Garrison discovered, much to his surprise, that he could not afford to support a church plant meeting in the vacated St. Bartholomew's property. Last year St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church ceased to exist. The congregation, the largest in the diocese and thoroughly orthodox, bought an old synagogue and became St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church. Of course Garrison could have cut a deal with the departing parish but chose not to. They left the property and now he has to sell it. The community of St. Peter's in Forestville announced that they have left The Episcopal Church denuding the diocese of much needed income. The bishop then admitted that many parishes are in financial difficulty and that the diocese will need to reduce the number of church buildings in the next few years. His retirement will be a blessing in this case. His successor will have the "joy" of closing more parishes. "In the last few months I have met with vestries and leaders of a number of our parishes who are experiencing financial difficulties. The financial crisis we experience in our nation and world exacerbates and highlights this difficulty. In many parishes the trouble has been brought on by an over dependence on endowments. The leadership of our congregations needs to be wise and prudent in these matters. All of us are called upon to live within our means. "We also need to ask ourselves over the next few years, if we can any longer support the number of church buildings in which our community worships."
Is juncturing with another diocese in their future?
DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY
The Rt. Rev. George Councell, Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey has carried a particular piece of advice with him throughout his career delivering Masses in New Jersey: Say each as if it were your first, say it as if it were your last, say it as if it were your only Mass.
That outlook gave Councell something of an emotional advantage over the rank-and-file parishioners of Fair Haven's Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion recently. That was the day Councell came to preside over the congregation's last-ever Mass.
After 125 years of service, the towering River Road landmark was closed for good following the afternoon service. The church and two buildings on the property are owned by the diocese, and will likely be put on the market, according to Councell.
But Councell was angry at the closure and he spoke his mind, "I am very disappointed with the lack of support for one of my Churches. This trend had better stop or I will make life on earth not as enjoyable as it has been for most of you. Go to one of the other local churches this weekend and double your donations so we can collect the funds necessary to reopen this most Holy of Houses. Remember I am watching all of you, so don't disappoint."
DIOCESE OF WESTERN LOUISIANA
At the Diocese of Western Louisiana's Thirtieth Annual Diocesan Convention, the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson publicly admitted that the diocese could lose parishes following GC2009's Resolution actions. In his address to the diocese, the orthodox bishop hinted broadly that the diocese could not serve two masters. "We could well be faced with making a choice of being either provincially oriented or Communion oriented - for it is clear we cannot be both."
Describing the situation as "uncertain," he said, "We cannot claim to be part of a catholic body and then seek to exercise 'local option' over crucial issues."
He further acknowledged that there were some in the diocese who are taking a more formal step by looking towards separation.
New Jersey bishop George Councell, summed it up by saying that there are some things worse than death. "One of them is denial. Resurrection follows death, not denial," he said.
The Episcopal Church denial about the direction of the church and its advocacy and passage of a series of pansexual resolutions by general convention has only heightened rebellion amongst the church's rank and file. The rejection of personal faith by Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and the go-it-alone mentality by TEC among the Communion's archbishops has resulted in the birth of a new orthodox North American Anglican province.
END
Bishop is ordained before hundreds
From the Daily Pilot (CA):
Pageantry and song accompany Long Beach rector’s three-hour welcome to the Diocese of Western Anglicans. The church’s first bishop will preside over 22 churches.
By Brianna Bailey
Updated: Sunday, November 1, 2009 9:08 AM PST
Anglican clergymen from as far away as Uganda and Newfoundland visited Newport Beach on Saturday to ordain a new bishop in the fledgling Anglican Church of North America.
Formed in 2008, the church is made up of congregations in the United States and Canada that have broken away from the Episcopal Church over differing views on homosexuality and the Scriptures.
The movement includes Newport’s St. James Church on Via Lido.
“This is an important, historical day for the whole church,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church of North America, who presided over the incense-drenched ceremony at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Saturday. “You can see the excitement in the people today.”
William Thompson was ordained as the first bishop of the of the Diocese of Western Anglicans of the Anglican Church in North America during a three-hour ceremony filled with pageantry and song.
The newly formed Diocese of Western Anglicans Thompson will preside over includes 22 churches scattered across California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington and Montana.
The few hundred people assembled at the ordination broke into applause as the archbishop placed a red embroidered bishop’s hat atop Thompson’s head.
“Receive the helmet of protection and salvation,” Duncan said after placing the pointed hat on Thompson’s head. “Be merciful and not remiss, so minister discipline, yet do not forget mercy, that when the chief shepherd shall appear, you man receive the never fading crown of glory.”
At one point during the ceremony, Thompson began to cry, while kneeling at the front of the church.
“I was mostly trying to hold my tears back,” Thompson said after the ordination. “There was a sense of unbelief that God had chosen me for this.”
Thompson, rector at All Saint’s Church in Long Beach, never had aspirations to be a become a bishop, he said.
But he has become one of the leaders in a growing movement of conservative congregations who have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the past five years over differing views on homosexuality and their interpretation of Holy Scripture.
The fledgling bishop hopes to see his diocese grow, building new churches across the Western United States, he said. There are also the ongoing legal battles with the Episcopal Church to attend to.
Several churches in the diocese are still embroiled in heated property disputes with the Episcopal Church, including St. James.
St. James became one of three conservative Southern California parishes that placed themselves under the jurisdiction of an Anglican Ugandan bishop after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop in 2003. Other Episcopal bishops began sanctioning gay marriages about the same time. The break led to a highly publicized property dispute over whether the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles or the St. James’ congregation owned the white stucco church, which stands across the street from Newport Harbor on the Balboa Peninsula.
Pageantry and song accompany Long Beach rector’s three-hour welcome to the Diocese of Western Anglicans. The church’s first bishop will preside over 22 churches.
By Brianna Bailey
Updated: Sunday, November 1, 2009 9:08 AM PST
Anglican clergymen from as far away as Uganda and Newfoundland visited Newport Beach on Saturday to ordain a new bishop in the fledgling Anglican Church of North America.
Formed in 2008, the church is made up of congregations in the United States and Canada that have broken away from the Episcopal Church over differing views on homosexuality and the Scriptures.
The movement includes Newport’s St. James Church on Via Lido.
“This is an important, historical day for the whole church,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church of North America, who presided over the incense-drenched ceremony at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Saturday. “You can see the excitement in the people today.”
William Thompson was ordained as the first bishop of the of the Diocese of Western Anglicans of the Anglican Church in North America during a three-hour ceremony filled with pageantry and song.
The newly formed Diocese of Western Anglicans Thompson will preside over includes 22 churches scattered across California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington and Montana.
The few hundred people assembled at the ordination broke into applause as the archbishop placed a red embroidered bishop’s hat atop Thompson’s head.
“Receive the helmet of protection and salvation,” Duncan said after placing the pointed hat on Thompson’s head. “Be merciful and not remiss, so minister discipline, yet do not forget mercy, that when the chief shepherd shall appear, you man receive the never fading crown of glory.”
At one point during the ceremony, Thompson began to cry, while kneeling at the front of the church.
“I was mostly trying to hold my tears back,” Thompson said after the ordination. “There was a sense of unbelief that God had chosen me for this.”
Thompson, rector at All Saint’s Church in Long Beach, never had aspirations to be a become a bishop, he said.
But he has become one of the leaders in a growing movement of conservative congregations who have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the past five years over differing views on homosexuality and their interpretation of Holy Scripture.
The fledgling bishop hopes to see his diocese grow, building new churches across the Western United States, he said. There are also the ongoing legal battles with the Episcopal Church to attend to.
Several churches in the diocese are still embroiled in heated property disputes with the Episcopal Church, including St. James.
St. James became one of three conservative Southern California parishes that placed themselves under the jurisdiction of an Anglican Ugandan bishop after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop in 2003. Other Episcopal bishops began sanctioning gay marriages about the same time. The break led to a highly publicized property dispute over whether the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles or the St. James’ congregation owned the white stucco church, which stands across the street from Newport Harbor on the Balboa Peninsula.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Good news on blog traffic
According to Alexa, Stand Firm in Faith has passed the episcopalchurch.org site in traffic.
SFIF worldwide:197,473
US 60,197
ec.org ww: 222,420
US 60,543
Maybe this means that Episcopalians don't care anymore, the war is over, life is back to the regular abnormalcy. I don't know. I did find it notable and interesting.
btw, the DCNY blog continues as an independent news source for the DCNY. I still get reports that DCNY priests do not let their people know what's going on in pecusa and worldwide Anglicanism. This is understandable but shameful. If we as Anglicans really believe in a communion of saints you would think that the saints ought to know what's going on in the larger church. I understand why DCNY priests don't let their people know what's going on elsewhere. What is going on in pecusa is shameful in itself and the people in the pews would be absolutely shocked if they knew about it. What is going on in Anglicanism is a slow disintegration that was touched off by pecusa actions and continues because of pecusa stubbornness. pecusa continues to walk apart from the Anglican Communion and shows no interest in returning to full communion with the wider Communion.
SFIF worldwide:197,473
US 60,197
ec.org ww: 222,420
US 60,543
Maybe this means that Episcopalians don't care anymore, the war is over, life is back to the regular abnormalcy. I don't know. I did find it notable and interesting.
btw, the DCNY blog continues as an independent news source for the DCNY. I still get reports that DCNY priests do not let their people know what's going on in pecusa and worldwide Anglicanism. This is understandable but shameful. If we as Anglicans really believe in a communion of saints you would think that the saints ought to know what's going on in the larger church. I understand why DCNY priests don't let their people know what's going on elsewhere. What is going on in pecusa is shameful in itself and the people in the pews would be absolutely shocked if they knew about it. What is going on in Anglicanism is a slow disintegration that was touched off by pecusa actions and continues because of pecusa stubbornness. pecusa continues to walk apart from the Anglican Communion and shows no interest in returning to full communion with the wider Communion.
ANGLICAN REFORMATIONS: ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
By George Egerton
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
Nov. 1, 2009
In the promised Apostolic Constitution, the Roman Catholic Church has prepared a welcome for dissident Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Communion who have lost all confidence in the polity and fidelity of Anglicanism within the Church of England, The Episcopal Church (US), and other Anglican Churches of the first world, as the official structures seem determined to depart from traditional Anglican teaching and practice, in the name of inclusion, feminism, and human rights.
Other conservative Anglicans under North American revisionist jurisdictions have, in large measure, already departed. Having exhausted the hopes for reform and renewal within their national churches, they have formed new confessional jurisdictions, such as the Anglican Network in Canada, under the broader umbrella of the Anglican Church in North America, and in alignment with the burgeoning Anglican churches of the global south.
Anglican evangelicals and charismatics share the concern and alienation of Anglo-Catholics, and they can understand the desire to embrace the terms which the Vatican is offering in allowing continuation of Anglican liturgy, accepting a married priesthood, and providing non-territorial episcopal oversight to be exercised by unmarried Anglican priests or bishops. If it is an occasion of sadness to see the imminent departure of faithful Anglo-Catholics to Rome, we wish them well, even as they will have to abandon much of the heart of classic Anglican theology. But for Anglican evangelicals, like this author, joining the Roman Catholic Church and necessarily accepting its doctrines and papal ecclesiology is not a path that can be followed in good conscience.
What can be hoped for now in the deeply-divided world Anglican Communion given the crises precipitated by the revisionists of First World Churches? Does the Vatican initiative signal something broader than the establishment of another concessionary ethnic 'prelature.' The answers to these questions are probably closely associated. We can see the Vatican has proved itself capable, given its long experience with ethnic diversity, of adapting its structures to make reasonable accommodations, while insisting on the preservation of its doctrinal teaching and the authority of its magisterium.
By contrast, Anglicanism has proved incapable of maintaining classic Christian teachings on an array of issues, most notably on sexual and marital ethics, while simultaneously refusing to adapt its territorial episcopacy and national structures to allow conservatives extraordinary forms of episcopal oversight with adequate jurisdiction. One of the principal arguments presented by the revisionist Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada against episcopal innovations to accommodate conservative Anglicans was that such action would violate the traditional status of a territorial episcopacy. Clearly, there were limitations to the revisionists' imagination, and the Vatican's offer illustrates what is possible when there is charity and goodwill.
The departure of Anglo-Catholics will not have massive numerical or theological impact in the United States, or Canada, where Anglican demographics are already in free-fall. But in Britain, their reception by Rome will change the nature of the Church of England and profoundly affect Anglican - Roman Catholic relations. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was quick to downplay the significance of the Vatican announcement, denying that it was an aggressive move or was anything other than a continuation of the ecumenical discussions of the two churches. But, equally, it is clear he was blind-sided by the Catholic overture, which was generated wholly apart from the ecumenical bureaucracy, and drove the Anglican Archbishop to his default mode of denial and positive spinning.
The Vatican's abrupt initiative (Williams had but a week's notice), represents the inferred abandonment by Rome of the long-term ecumenical dialogue with Anglicanism. They will now turn to the much more hopeful ecumenical rapprochement with Eastern Orthodoxy, where both sides have increasing desire for unity.
Without its Anglo-Catholics, the Church of England will be left with an already dominant liberal hierarchy much more entrenched and determined to extend its revisionist agenda. This will compound Archbishop Williams' problems, as he struggles to steer the world wide Anglican Communion 'through many dangers, toils and snares.' If the Anglo-Catholics have been offered refuge in Roman Catholicism, the Anglican evangelicals and charismatics have found rescue in the missions mounted by two-thirds world African, Asian, and Latin American Anglican Primates, and their provision of extraordinary Episcopal protection to faithful Anglicans who have become victims of hostile revisionist Bishops and church bureaucracies.
The rescue of alienated North American conservative Anglicans by global south Anglicans, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the Anglican Communion, has generated a new reformation in the international polity of Anglicanism, with the conservatives convening the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008, issuing a confessional statement in the Jerusalem Declaration, and proceeding to organize a world-wide Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, with the ground shifting under his feet, has attempted, with winsome and artful determination, to re-establish Anglican identity and discipline, through a conciliar process which produced the Windsor Report of 2004 and then presented a draft Anglican Covenant of proposed norms and procedures. The Archbishop has faced resistance from revisionists on any moves to reassert confessionality and discipline, while evangelicals have endorsed the Windsor Report and the draft Covenant with enthusiasm.
With the departure to Rome of most of the Anglo-Catholics, the increasing institutional entrenchment of the revisionists within the Church of England, and the spreading momentum of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Archbishop Williams' leadership seems stressed beyond capacity. Anglicanism, in Canada and globally, seems at a tipping point. Perhaps next summer's General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will serve as a microcosm of things to come for first world Anglicanism, as the global Anglican Communion is facing both the end of the old Reformation for Anglo-Catholics, and a new reformation for confessing Anglicans.
----Dr. George Egerton is Associate Professor Emeritus, History Department at the University of British Columbia. He is a member, St. John's Anglican Church, Vancouver
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
Nov. 1, 2009
In the promised Apostolic Constitution, the Roman Catholic Church has prepared a welcome for dissident Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Communion who have lost all confidence in the polity and fidelity of Anglicanism within the Church of England, The Episcopal Church (US), and other Anglican Churches of the first world, as the official structures seem determined to depart from traditional Anglican teaching and practice, in the name of inclusion, feminism, and human rights.
Other conservative Anglicans under North American revisionist jurisdictions have, in large measure, already departed. Having exhausted the hopes for reform and renewal within their national churches, they have formed new confessional jurisdictions, such as the Anglican Network in Canada, under the broader umbrella of the Anglican Church in North America, and in alignment with the burgeoning Anglican churches of the global south.
Anglican evangelicals and charismatics share the concern and alienation of Anglo-Catholics, and they can understand the desire to embrace the terms which the Vatican is offering in allowing continuation of Anglican liturgy, accepting a married priesthood, and providing non-territorial episcopal oversight to be exercised by unmarried Anglican priests or bishops. If it is an occasion of sadness to see the imminent departure of faithful Anglo-Catholics to Rome, we wish them well, even as they will have to abandon much of the heart of classic Anglican theology. But for Anglican evangelicals, like this author, joining the Roman Catholic Church and necessarily accepting its doctrines and papal ecclesiology is not a path that can be followed in good conscience.
What can be hoped for now in the deeply-divided world Anglican Communion given the crises precipitated by the revisionists of First World Churches? Does the Vatican initiative signal something broader than the establishment of another concessionary ethnic 'prelature.' The answers to these questions are probably closely associated. We can see the Vatican has proved itself capable, given its long experience with ethnic diversity, of adapting its structures to make reasonable accommodations, while insisting on the preservation of its doctrinal teaching and the authority of its magisterium.
By contrast, Anglicanism has proved incapable of maintaining classic Christian teachings on an array of issues, most notably on sexual and marital ethics, while simultaneously refusing to adapt its territorial episcopacy and national structures to allow conservatives extraordinary forms of episcopal oversight with adequate jurisdiction. One of the principal arguments presented by the revisionist Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada against episcopal innovations to accommodate conservative Anglicans was that such action would violate the traditional status of a territorial episcopacy. Clearly, there were limitations to the revisionists' imagination, and the Vatican's offer illustrates what is possible when there is charity and goodwill.
The departure of Anglo-Catholics will not have massive numerical or theological impact in the United States, or Canada, where Anglican demographics are already in free-fall. But in Britain, their reception by Rome will change the nature of the Church of England and profoundly affect Anglican - Roman Catholic relations. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was quick to downplay the significance of the Vatican announcement, denying that it was an aggressive move or was anything other than a continuation of the ecumenical discussions of the two churches. But, equally, it is clear he was blind-sided by the Catholic overture, which was generated wholly apart from the ecumenical bureaucracy, and drove the Anglican Archbishop to his default mode of denial and positive spinning.
The Vatican's abrupt initiative (Williams had but a week's notice), represents the inferred abandonment by Rome of the long-term ecumenical dialogue with Anglicanism. They will now turn to the much more hopeful ecumenical rapprochement with Eastern Orthodoxy, where both sides have increasing desire for unity.
Without its Anglo-Catholics, the Church of England will be left with an already dominant liberal hierarchy much more entrenched and determined to extend its revisionist agenda. This will compound Archbishop Williams' problems, as he struggles to steer the world wide Anglican Communion 'through many dangers, toils and snares.' If the Anglo-Catholics have been offered refuge in Roman Catholicism, the Anglican evangelicals and charismatics have found rescue in the missions mounted by two-thirds world African, Asian, and Latin American Anglican Primates, and their provision of extraordinary Episcopal protection to faithful Anglicans who have become victims of hostile revisionist Bishops and church bureaucracies.
The rescue of alienated North American conservative Anglicans by global south Anglicans, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the Anglican Communion, has generated a new reformation in the international polity of Anglicanism, with the conservatives convening the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008, issuing a confessional statement in the Jerusalem Declaration, and proceeding to organize a world-wide Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, with the ground shifting under his feet, has attempted, with winsome and artful determination, to re-establish Anglican identity and discipline, through a conciliar process which produced the Windsor Report of 2004 and then presented a draft Anglican Covenant of proposed norms and procedures. The Archbishop has faced resistance from revisionists on any moves to reassert confessionality and discipline, while evangelicals have endorsed the Windsor Report and the draft Covenant with enthusiasm.
With the departure to Rome of most of the Anglo-Catholics, the increasing institutional entrenchment of the revisionists within the Church of England, and the spreading momentum of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Archbishop Williams' leadership seems stressed beyond capacity. Anglicanism, in Canada and globally, seems at a tipping point. Perhaps next summer's General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will serve as a microcosm of things to come for first world Anglicanism, as the global Anglican Communion is facing both the end of the old Reformation for Anglo-Catholics, and a new reformation for confessing Anglicans.
----Dr. George Egerton is Associate Professor Emeritus, History Department at the University of British Columbia. He is a member, St. John's Anglican Church, Vancouver
A Documentary History of ECUSA's Constitution
From the Anglican Curmudgeon via TitusOneNine:
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009
There is much litigation going on currently in State courts over the polity of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, there do not appear to be any online versions readily available of ECUSA's early Constitution, either as originally adopted or as subsequently from time to time amended. The commentary on the history of the Constitution and Canons published in 1981 by Messrs. White & Dykman, and reprinted in 1997, is available for download from this site (along with two supplements written by others, carrying the account through General Convention 1991). However, even it does not have in one place a complete version of ECUSA's original Constitution, which is so important for understanding the nature of ECUSA's mixed form of ecclesiastical polity.
Since the nature of ECUSA's polity is so much in dispute these days, I have decided that as a public service, I will publish in this post the earliest version of the Church's Constitution, as well as some further historical materials leading up to its formulation. The purpose will be so that everyone may access and understand the Church's organic evolution (see this earlier post for even more detail and background), out of a meeting of delegates from the various successors, in each new State, of the previously established Church of England in the respective colonies.
Let us begin with the six principles for the formation of a national replacement in the States for the Church of England, as it had existed in the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. The Rev. Dr. William White, of Christ Church in Philadelphia, later one of the first Bishops in the newly established Church, first proposed them in a pamphlet which he had published in 1782, entitled The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered:
I. That the Episcopal Church in these States is and ought to be independent of all foreign Authority, ecclesiastical or civil.
II. That it hath and ought to have, in common with all other religious Societies, full and exclusive Powers to regulate the Concerns of its own Communion.
III. That the Doctrines of the Gospel be maintained as now professed by the Church of England; and Uniformity of Worship be continued, as near as may be, to the Liturgy of the said Church.
IV. That the Succession of the Ministry be agreeably to the Usage which requireth the three Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; that the Rights and Powers of the same respectively be ascertained, and that they be exercised according to reasonable Laws, to be duly made.
V. That to make Canons or Laws, there be no other Authority than that of a Representative Body of the Clergy and Laity conjointly.
VI. That no Powers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical Government, except such as cannot conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Vestries in their respective Congregations.
(Emphasis added.) The last principle thus expressed from the very outset the belief that the "general ecclesiastical Government" would consist of powers delegated to it from local congregations. Those who contend that the lack of any limitation in the powers so delegated means that they are unlimited, or that once delegated, they may not be withdrawn, are ignorant of this documentary history of how General Convention came into being.
This pamphlet had a wide reception in the mid-Atlantic States, and served as the basis for a further "Declaration of certain fundamental rights" agreed upon by the assembled former Anglican clergy of the State of Maryland, at a gathering in Annapolis in August 1783, which stated in relevant part as follows:
DECLARATION of certain fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland, &C.
WHEREAS by the CONSTITUTION and FORM of Government of this State "All Persons professing the Christian Religion, are equally entitled to Protection in their Religious Liberty . . . And Whereas the ecclesiastical and spiritual Independence of the different religious Denominations, Societies, Congregations, and Churches of Christians in this State, necessarily follows from, or is included in, their civil Independence,
WHEREFORE WE the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland (heretofore denominated the Church of England, as by Law established) with all Duty to the civil Authority of the State, and with all Love and Good-will to our Fellow-Christians of every other religious Denomination, do hereby declare, make known, and claim, the following, as certain of the fundamental Rights and Liberties inherent in and belonging to the said Episcopal Church . . .
I. WE consider it as the undoubted Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church, in common with other Christian Churches under the American Revolution, to compleat and preserve herself as an entire Church, agreeably to her ancient Usages and Profession, and to have the free Enjoyment and free Exercise of those purely spiritual Powers, which are essential to the Being of every Church or Congregation of the faithful, and which, being derived only from CHRIST and his APOSTLES, are to be maintained independent of every foreign or other Jurisdiction, so far as may be consistent with the civil Rights of Society.
II. That ever since the Reformation, it hath been the received Doctrine of the Church whereof we are Members . . . "That there be these three Orders of Ministers in CHRIST'S Church, BISHOPS, PRIESTS, and DEACONS," and that an Episcopal Ordination and Commission are necessary to the valid Administration of the Sacraments, and the due Exercise of the Ministerial Functions in the said Church.
III. That, without calling in Question the Rights, Modes, and Forms of any other Christian Churches or Societies, or wishing the least Contest with them on that Subject, we consider and declare it to be an essential Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church to have and enjoy the Continuance of the said three Orders of Ministers forever, so far as concerns Matters purely spiritual; and that no Persons, in the Character of Ministers, except such as are in the Communion of the said Church, and duly called to the Ministry by regular Episcopal Ordination, can or ought to be admitted into, or enjoy any of the "Churches, Chapels, Glebes, or other Property," formerly belonging to the Church of England in this State, and which by the Constitution and Form of Government is secured to the said Church forever, by whatsoever Name, she the said Church, or her superior Order of Ministers, may in future be denominated.
IV. That as it is the Right, so it will be the Duty, of the said Church, when duly organized, constituted, and represented in a Synod or Convention of the different Orders of her Ministry and People, to revise her Liturgy, Forms of Prayer, and public Worship, in order to adapt the same to the late Revolution and other local Circumstances of America; which it is humbly conceived, may and will be done, without any other or farther Departure from the venerable Order and beautiful Forms of Worship of the Church from whence we sprung, than may be found expedient in the Change of our Situation from a DAUGHTER to a SISTER-CHURCH.
(Emphasis again added.) The editor of the volume in which this declaration is to be found appends a piece of contemporary correspondence, with the following introductory remarks (I have added the italics):
In connection with these "Fundamental Principles," which appear not only in this printed address, but again and again in subsequent Journals and fragments of Journals of the Maryland Conventions, it may be well to subjoin the following important letter, from the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the leading spirit in the Maryland organization, which bears strongly upon the question of diocesan independence, as held by the framers of our ecclesiastical Constitution. It forms, moreover, a fitting preface to the "Proceedings" it so clearly indicates in advance.
Dear Sir:
The Clergy of Maryland are to meet (in pursuance of the sanction obtained from the G. Assembly) on the 13th of this Month; but as Mr. Gates and myself were to call this Meeting, we found on consulting some of our nearest Brethren, that they did not think it proper, nor that we were authorized, to call any Clergy to our assistance from the neighboring States that the Episcopal Clergy of Maryland were in some respects peculiarly circumstanced, and ought, in the first instance, to have a preparatory Convention or Conference, to consider and frame a DECLARATION of their own Rights as one of the Churches of a separate and independent State, to agree upon some articles of Government and Unity among themselves, to fix some future Time of meeting by adjournment, to appoint a Committee to bring in a Plan of SOME FEW alterations that may be found necessary in the Liturgy and Service of the Church, and by the authority of this first Meeting to open a correspondence on the subject with the Clergy of the neighboring States, and to have some speedy future and more general meeting with the Clergy of those States, or Committees from them, to unite if possible in the alterations to be made, which many among us think cannot have a full Church Ratification, till we have on some plan or another the three Orders of Bishops, Priests and Deacons to concur in the same. What STATE or civic ratification may be necessary, or whether any is a question yet to be determined. In Maryland, I presume, a few words of a Declaratory Act, that a Clergy, ordained in such a form, and using a Liturgy with such alterations as may be agreed upon, are to be considered as entitled to the Glebes, Churches and other property declared by the Constitution to belong to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND for ever. I say such a short Act as this, or the Opinion of the Judges that such Act is not necessary, is I conceive all that will be wanted.
Chester: August 4th, 1783.
To Rev. Dr. WHITE.
From the Bishop White MSS., in the possession of the Rev. F. L. Hawks, D.D.
There followed a gathering of clergy and laity from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey at Brunswick, New Jersey on May 11, 1784, which resulted in a determination to gather again in October, and to invite representatives from churches in additional States. This meeting also spurred the clergy and laity from the parishes in Pennsylvania to begin their own organizing. To that end, they assembled in Philadelphia toward the end of May 1784. The meeting was the first of its kind in the former Colonies to include laity from each and every parish. It ended up by adopting the following recommendation concerning the creation of a "standing committee" -- the first use of this term in the nascent Church:
That they think it expedient to appoint a standing committee of the Episcopal church in this state, consisting of clergy and laity; that the said committee be empowered to correspond and confer with representatives from the Episcopal church in the other states, or any of them; and assist in framing an ecclesiastical government; that a constitution of ecclesiastical government, when framed, be reported to the several congregations, through their respective ministers, church-wardens, and vestrymen, to be binding on all the congregations consenting to it, as soon as a majority of the congregations shall have consented; that a majority of the committee, or any less number by them appointed, be a quorum; that they be desired to keep minutes of their proceedings; and that they be bound by the following instructions or fundamental principles. [There follow the six fundamental principles first set out by the Rev. Dr. White in his pamphlet.]
The "standing committee" so formed did communicate with clergy and laity in other States, as I have already related in this earlier post. This resulted in a series of further meetings and drafts of a national constitution, as I have spelled out in great detail there, and I will not repeat here what I said earlier. My concern from this point on is to set out the version of the Church Constitution as finally agreed upon by the assembled representatives of the Churches in the States of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina in the city of Philadelphia in September-October 1789, and as finally ratified by diocesan conventions in each of those States, since the text does not readily appear elsewhere on the Web. Here, then, is the text of that original Constitution, in full:
THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
ART. 1. There shall be a General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America on the second Tuesday of September, in the year of our Lord 1792, and on the second Tuesday of September in every third year afterwards, in such place as shall be determined by the Convention; and special meetings may be called at other times, in the manner hereafter to be provided for; and this Church, in a majority of the States which shall have adopted this Constitution, shall be represented, before they shall proceed to business, except that the representation from two States shall be sufficient to adjourn; and in all business of the Convention, freedom of debate shall be allowed.
ART. 2. The Church in each State shall be entitled to a representation of both the Clergy and the Laity, which representation shall consist of one or more Deputies, not exceeding four of each Order, chosen by the Convention of the State: and in all questions, when required by the Clerical or Lay representation from any State, each Order shall have one vote; and the majority of suffrages by States shall be conclusive in each Order, provided such majority comprehend a majority of the States represented in that Order. The concurrence of both Orders shall be necessary to constitute a vote of the Convention. If the Convention of any State should neglect or decline to appoint Clerical Deputies, or if they should neglect or decline to appoint Lay Deputies, or if any of those of either Order appointed should neglect to attend, or be prevented by sickness or any other accident, such State shall nevertheless be considered as duly represented by such Deputy or Deputies as may attend, whether lay or clerical. And if, through the neglect of the Convention of any of the Churches which shall have adopted, or may hereafter adopt this Constitution, no Deputies, either Lay or Clerical, should attend at any General Convention, the Church in such State shall nevertheless be bound by the acts of such Convention.
ART. 3. The Bishops of this Church, when there shall be three or more, shall, whenever General Conventions are held, form a separate House, with a right to originate and propose acts for the concurrence of the House of Deputies, composed of Clergy and Laity ; and when any proposed act shall have passed the House of Deputies, the same shall be transmitted to the House of Bishops, who shall have a negative thereupon unless adhered to by four-fifths of the other House. And all acts of the Convention shall be authenticated by both Houses. And in all cases, the House of Bishops shall signify to the Convention their approbation or disapprobation, the latter with their reasons in writing, within three days after the proposed act shall have been reported to them for concurrence, and in failure thereof it shall have the operation of a law. But until there shall be three or more Bishops as aforesaid, any Bishop attending a General Convention shall be a member ex officio, and shall vote with the Clerical Deputies of the State to which he belongs; and a Bishop shall then preside.
ART. 4. The Bishop or Bishops in every State shall be chosen agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the Convention of that State. And every Bishop of this Church shall confine the exercise of his Episcopal office to his proper Diocese or District, unless requested to ordain or confirm, or perform any other act of the Episcopal office, by any Church destitute of a Bishop.
ART. 5. A Protestant Episcopal Church in any of the United States not now represented, may, at any time hereafter, be admitted, on acceding to this Constitution.
ART. 6. In every State, the mode of trying Clergymen shall be instituted by the Convention of the Church therein. At every trial of a Bishop there shall be one or more of the Episcopal Order present: and none but a Bishop shall pronounce sentence of deposition or degradation from the Ministry on any Clergyman, whether Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon.
ART. 7. No person shall be admitted to Holy Orders, until he shall have been examined by the Bishop and by two Presbyters, and shall have exhibited such testimonials and other requisites as the Canons in that case provided may direct. Nor shall any person be ordained until he shall have subscribed the following declaration: "I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation: and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States." No person ordained by a foreign Bishop shall be permitted to officiate as a Minister of this Church, until he shall have complied with the Canon or Canons in that case provided, and have also subscribed the aforesaid declaration.
ART. 8. A Book of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Articles of Religion, and a form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, when established by this or a future General Convention, shall be used in the Protestant Episcopal Church in those States, which shall have adopted this Constitution.
ART. 9. This Constitution shall be unalterable, unless in General Convention by the Church in a majority of the States which may have adopted the same; and all alterations shall be first proposed in one General Convention, and made known to the several State Conventions, before they shall be finally agreed to, or ratified, in the ensuing General Convention.
Done in General Convention of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Church, the second day of October, 1789, and ordered to be transcribed into the Book of Records, and subscribed, which was done as follows, viz.
IN THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS.
SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut.
WILLIAM WHITE, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Pennsylvania.
IN THE HOUSE OF CLERICAL AND LAY DEPUTIES.
WILLIAM SMITH, D.D., President of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, and Clerical Deputy from Maryland.
NEW HAMPSHIRE & MASSACHUSETTS
SAMUEL PARKER, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Boston.
CONNECTICUT
BELA HUBBARD, A.M., Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven.
ABRAHAM JARVIS, A.M., Rector of Christ Church, Middletown.
NEW YORK
BENJAMIN MOORE, D.D., } Assistant Ministers of
ABRAHAM BEACH, D.D., } Trinity Church, in the City of New York.
RICHARD HARRISON, Lay Deputy from the State of New York.
NEW JERSEY
UZAL OGDEN, Rector of Trinity Church, Newark.
WILLIAM FRAZER, A.M., Rector of St. Michael's Church, Trenton, and St. Andrew's Church, Amwell.
SAMUEL OGDEN, }
R. STRETTELL JONES, } Lay Deputies.
PENNSYLVANIA
SAMUEL MAGAW, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia.
ROBERT BLACKWELL, D.D., Senior Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH G. J. BEND, Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH PILMORE, Rector of the United Churches of Trinity, St. Thomas, and All Saints.
GERARDUS CLARKSON, } Lay Deputies
TENCH COXE, } from the State
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, } of Pennsylva-
SAMUEL POWEL, } nia.
DELAWARE
JOSEPH COWDEN, A.M., Rector of St. Anne's.
ROBERT CLAY, Rector of Emanuel and St. James's Churches.
MARYLAND
JOHN BISSETT, A.M., Rector of Shrews bury Parish, Kent County.
JOHN RUMSEY, } Lay
CHARLES GOLDSBOROUGH, } Deputies.
VIRGINIA
JOHN BRACKEN, Rector of Bruton Parish, Williamsburg.
ROBERT ANDREWS, Lay Deputy.
SOUTH CAROLINA
ROBERT SMITH, D.D., Rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston.
WILLIAM SMITH, } Lay Deputies from
WILLIAM BRISBANE, } the State of South Carolina.
Note the many features in common with the version we have today, as well as the provisions that have been greatly expanded (e.g., Art. V, on how dioceses form and join) and that were subsequently dropped altogether (e.g., the last sentence of Art. 2, as discussed and explained in the paper by Mark McCall published by the Anglican Communion Institute [see n. 44 and the text at that point]; repealed as part of the overhaul made in 1901.) As I deem it useful, I will document additional versions of the Constitution in subsequent posts.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009
There is much litigation going on currently in State courts over the polity of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, there do not appear to be any online versions readily available of ECUSA's early Constitution, either as originally adopted or as subsequently from time to time amended. The commentary on the history of the Constitution and Canons published in 1981 by Messrs. White & Dykman, and reprinted in 1997, is available for download from this site (along with two supplements written by others, carrying the account through General Convention 1991). However, even it does not have in one place a complete version of ECUSA's original Constitution, which is so important for understanding the nature of ECUSA's mixed form of ecclesiastical polity.
Since the nature of ECUSA's polity is so much in dispute these days, I have decided that as a public service, I will publish in this post the earliest version of the Church's Constitution, as well as some further historical materials leading up to its formulation. The purpose will be so that everyone may access and understand the Church's organic evolution (see this earlier post for even more detail and background), out of a meeting of delegates from the various successors, in each new State, of the previously established Church of England in the respective colonies.
Let us begin with the six principles for the formation of a national replacement in the States for the Church of England, as it had existed in the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. The Rev. Dr. William White, of Christ Church in Philadelphia, later one of the first Bishops in the newly established Church, first proposed them in a pamphlet which he had published in 1782, entitled The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered:
I. That the Episcopal Church in these States is and ought to be independent of all foreign Authority, ecclesiastical or civil.
II. That it hath and ought to have, in common with all other religious Societies, full and exclusive Powers to regulate the Concerns of its own Communion.
III. That the Doctrines of the Gospel be maintained as now professed by the Church of England; and Uniformity of Worship be continued, as near as may be, to the Liturgy of the said Church.
IV. That the Succession of the Ministry be agreeably to the Usage which requireth the three Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; that the Rights and Powers of the same respectively be ascertained, and that they be exercised according to reasonable Laws, to be duly made.
V. That to make Canons or Laws, there be no other Authority than that of a Representative Body of the Clergy and Laity conjointly.
VI. That no Powers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical Government, except such as cannot conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Vestries in their respective Congregations.
(Emphasis added.) The last principle thus expressed from the very outset the belief that the "general ecclesiastical Government" would consist of powers delegated to it from local congregations. Those who contend that the lack of any limitation in the powers so delegated means that they are unlimited, or that once delegated, they may not be withdrawn, are ignorant of this documentary history of how General Convention came into being.
This pamphlet had a wide reception in the mid-Atlantic States, and served as the basis for a further "Declaration of certain fundamental rights" agreed upon by the assembled former Anglican clergy of the State of Maryland, at a gathering in Annapolis in August 1783, which stated in relevant part as follows:
DECLARATION of certain fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland, &C.
WHEREAS by the CONSTITUTION and FORM of Government of this State "All Persons professing the Christian Religion, are equally entitled to Protection in their Religious Liberty . . . And Whereas the ecclesiastical and spiritual Independence of the different religious Denominations, Societies, Congregations, and Churches of Christians in this State, necessarily follows from, or is included in, their civil Independence,
WHEREFORE WE the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland (heretofore denominated the Church of England, as by Law established) with all Duty to the civil Authority of the State, and with all Love and Good-will to our Fellow-Christians of every other religious Denomination, do hereby declare, make known, and claim, the following, as certain of the fundamental Rights and Liberties inherent in and belonging to the said Episcopal Church . . .
I. WE consider it as the undoubted Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church, in common with other Christian Churches under the American Revolution, to compleat and preserve herself as an entire Church, agreeably to her ancient Usages and Profession, and to have the free Enjoyment and free Exercise of those purely spiritual Powers, which are essential to the Being of every Church or Congregation of the faithful, and which, being derived only from CHRIST and his APOSTLES, are to be maintained independent of every foreign or other Jurisdiction, so far as may be consistent with the civil Rights of Society.
II. That ever since the Reformation, it hath been the received Doctrine of the Church whereof we are Members . . . "That there be these three Orders of Ministers in CHRIST'S Church, BISHOPS, PRIESTS, and DEACONS," and that an Episcopal Ordination and Commission are necessary to the valid Administration of the Sacraments, and the due Exercise of the Ministerial Functions in the said Church.
III. That, without calling in Question the Rights, Modes, and Forms of any other Christian Churches or Societies, or wishing the least Contest with them on that Subject, we consider and declare it to be an essential Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church to have and enjoy the Continuance of the said three Orders of Ministers forever, so far as concerns Matters purely spiritual; and that no Persons, in the Character of Ministers, except such as are in the Communion of the said Church, and duly called to the Ministry by regular Episcopal Ordination, can or ought to be admitted into, or enjoy any of the "Churches, Chapels, Glebes, or other Property," formerly belonging to the Church of England in this State, and which by the Constitution and Form of Government is secured to the said Church forever, by whatsoever Name, she the said Church, or her superior Order of Ministers, may in future be denominated.
IV. That as it is the Right, so it will be the Duty, of the said Church, when duly organized, constituted, and represented in a Synod or Convention of the different Orders of her Ministry and People, to revise her Liturgy, Forms of Prayer, and public Worship, in order to adapt the same to the late Revolution and other local Circumstances of America; which it is humbly conceived, may and will be done, without any other or farther Departure from the venerable Order and beautiful Forms of Worship of the Church from whence we sprung, than may be found expedient in the Change of our Situation from a DAUGHTER to a SISTER-CHURCH.
(Emphasis again added.) The editor of the volume in which this declaration is to be found appends a piece of contemporary correspondence, with the following introductory remarks (I have added the italics):
In connection with these "Fundamental Principles," which appear not only in this printed address, but again and again in subsequent Journals and fragments of Journals of the Maryland Conventions, it may be well to subjoin the following important letter, from the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the leading spirit in the Maryland organization, which bears strongly upon the question of diocesan independence, as held by the framers of our ecclesiastical Constitution. It forms, moreover, a fitting preface to the "Proceedings" it so clearly indicates in advance.
Dear Sir:
The Clergy of Maryland are to meet (in pursuance of the sanction obtained from the G. Assembly) on the 13th of this Month; but as Mr. Gates and myself were to call this Meeting, we found on consulting some of our nearest Brethren, that they did not think it proper, nor that we were authorized, to call any Clergy to our assistance from the neighboring States that the Episcopal Clergy of Maryland were in some respects peculiarly circumstanced, and ought, in the first instance, to have a preparatory Convention or Conference, to consider and frame a DECLARATION of their own Rights as one of the Churches of a separate and independent State, to agree upon some articles of Government and Unity among themselves, to fix some future Time of meeting by adjournment, to appoint a Committee to bring in a Plan of SOME FEW alterations that may be found necessary in the Liturgy and Service of the Church, and by the authority of this first Meeting to open a correspondence on the subject with the Clergy of the neighboring States, and to have some speedy future and more general meeting with the Clergy of those States, or Committees from them, to unite if possible in the alterations to be made, which many among us think cannot have a full Church Ratification, till we have on some plan or another the three Orders of Bishops, Priests and Deacons to concur in the same. What STATE or civic ratification may be necessary, or whether any is a question yet to be determined. In Maryland, I presume, a few words of a Declaratory Act, that a Clergy, ordained in such a form, and using a Liturgy with such alterations as may be agreed upon, are to be considered as entitled to the Glebes, Churches and other property declared by the Constitution to belong to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND for ever. I say such a short Act as this, or the Opinion of the Judges that such Act is not necessary, is I conceive all that will be wanted.
Chester: August 4th, 1783.
To Rev. Dr. WHITE.
From the Bishop White MSS., in the possession of the Rev. F. L. Hawks, D.D.
There followed a gathering of clergy and laity from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey at Brunswick, New Jersey on May 11, 1784, which resulted in a determination to gather again in October, and to invite representatives from churches in additional States. This meeting also spurred the clergy and laity from the parishes in Pennsylvania to begin their own organizing. To that end, they assembled in Philadelphia toward the end of May 1784. The meeting was the first of its kind in the former Colonies to include laity from each and every parish. It ended up by adopting the following recommendation concerning the creation of a "standing committee" -- the first use of this term in the nascent Church:
That they think it expedient to appoint a standing committee of the Episcopal church in this state, consisting of clergy and laity; that the said committee be empowered to correspond and confer with representatives from the Episcopal church in the other states, or any of them; and assist in framing an ecclesiastical government; that a constitution of ecclesiastical government, when framed, be reported to the several congregations, through their respective ministers, church-wardens, and vestrymen, to be binding on all the congregations consenting to it, as soon as a majority of the congregations shall have consented; that a majority of the committee, or any less number by them appointed, be a quorum; that they be desired to keep minutes of their proceedings; and that they be bound by the following instructions or fundamental principles. [There follow the six fundamental principles first set out by the Rev. Dr. White in his pamphlet.]
The "standing committee" so formed did communicate with clergy and laity in other States, as I have already related in this earlier post. This resulted in a series of further meetings and drafts of a national constitution, as I have spelled out in great detail there, and I will not repeat here what I said earlier. My concern from this point on is to set out the version of the Church Constitution as finally agreed upon by the assembled representatives of the Churches in the States of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina in the city of Philadelphia in September-October 1789, and as finally ratified by diocesan conventions in each of those States, since the text does not readily appear elsewhere on the Web. Here, then, is the text of that original Constitution, in full:
THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
ART. 1. There shall be a General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America on the second Tuesday of September, in the year of our Lord 1792, and on the second Tuesday of September in every third year afterwards, in such place as shall be determined by the Convention; and special meetings may be called at other times, in the manner hereafter to be provided for; and this Church, in a majority of the States which shall have adopted this Constitution, shall be represented, before they shall proceed to business, except that the representation from two States shall be sufficient to adjourn; and in all business of the Convention, freedom of debate shall be allowed.
ART. 2. The Church in each State shall be entitled to a representation of both the Clergy and the Laity, which representation shall consist of one or more Deputies, not exceeding four of each Order, chosen by the Convention of the State: and in all questions, when required by the Clerical or Lay representation from any State, each Order shall have one vote; and the majority of suffrages by States shall be conclusive in each Order, provided such majority comprehend a majority of the States represented in that Order. The concurrence of both Orders shall be necessary to constitute a vote of the Convention. If the Convention of any State should neglect or decline to appoint Clerical Deputies, or if they should neglect or decline to appoint Lay Deputies, or if any of those of either Order appointed should neglect to attend, or be prevented by sickness or any other accident, such State shall nevertheless be considered as duly represented by such Deputy or Deputies as may attend, whether lay or clerical. And if, through the neglect of the Convention of any of the Churches which shall have adopted, or may hereafter adopt this Constitution, no Deputies, either Lay or Clerical, should attend at any General Convention, the Church in such State shall nevertheless be bound by the acts of such Convention.
ART. 3. The Bishops of this Church, when there shall be three or more, shall, whenever General Conventions are held, form a separate House, with a right to originate and propose acts for the concurrence of the House of Deputies, composed of Clergy and Laity ; and when any proposed act shall have passed the House of Deputies, the same shall be transmitted to the House of Bishops, who shall have a negative thereupon unless adhered to by four-fifths of the other House. And all acts of the Convention shall be authenticated by both Houses. And in all cases, the House of Bishops shall signify to the Convention their approbation or disapprobation, the latter with their reasons in writing, within three days after the proposed act shall have been reported to them for concurrence, and in failure thereof it shall have the operation of a law. But until there shall be three or more Bishops as aforesaid, any Bishop attending a General Convention shall be a member ex officio, and shall vote with the Clerical Deputies of the State to which he belongs; and a Bishop shall then preside.
ART. 4. The Bishop or Bishops in every State shall be chosen agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the Convention of that State. And every Bishop of this Church shall confine the exercise of his Episcopal office to his proper Diocese or District, unless requested to ordain or confirm, or perform any other act of the Episcopal office, by any Church destitute of a Bishop.
ART. 5. A Protestant Episcopal Church in any of the United States not now represented, may, at any time hereafter, be admitted, on acceding to this Constitution.
ART. 6. In every State, the mode of trying Clergymen shall be instituted by the Convention of the Church therein. At every trial of a Bishop there shall be one or more of the Episcopal Order present: and none but a Bishop shall pronounce sentence of deposition or degradation from the Ministry on any Clergyman, whether Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon.
ART. 7. No person shall be admitted to Holy Orders, until he shall have been examined by the Bishop and by two Presbyters, and shall have exhibited such testimonials and other requisites as the Canons in that case provided may direct. Nor shall any person be ordained until he shall have subscribed the following declaration: "I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation: and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States." No person ordained by a foreign Bishop shall be permitted to officiate as a Minister of this Church, until he shall have complied with the Canon or Canons in that case provided, and have also subscribed the aforesaid declaration.
ART. 8. A Book of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Articles of Religion, and a form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, when established by this or a future General Convention, shall be used in the Protestant Episcopal Church in those States, which shall have adopted this Constitution.
ART. 9. This Constitution shall be unalterable, unless in General Convention by the Church in a majority of the States which may have adopted the same; and all alterations shall be first proposed in one General Convention, and made known to the several State Conventions, before they shall be finally agreed to, or ratified, in the ensuing General Convention.
Done in General Convention of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Church, the second day of October, 1789, and ordered to be transcribed into the Book of Records, and subscribed, which was done as follows, viz.
IN THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS.
SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut.
WILLIAM WHITE, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Pennsylvania.
IN THE HOUSE OF CLERICAL AND LAY DEPUTIES.
WILLIAM SMITH, D.D., President of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, and Clerical Deputy from Maryland.
NEW HAMPSHIRE & MASSACHUSETTS
SAMUEL PARKER, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Boston.
CONNECTICUT
BELA HUBBARD, A.M., Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven.
ABRAHAM JARVIS, A.M., Rector of Christ Church, Middletown.
NEW YORK
BENJAMIN MOORE, D.D., } Assistant Ministers of
ABRAHAM BEACH, D.D., } Trinity Church, in the City of New York.
RICHARD HARRISON, Lay Deputy from the State of New York.
NEW JERSEY
UZAL OGDEN, Rector of Trinity Church, Newark.
WILLIAM FRAZER, A.M., Rector of St. Michael's Church, Trenton, and St. Andrew's Church, Amwell.
SAMUEL OGDEN, }
R. STRETTELL JONES, } Lay Deputies.
PENNSYLVANIA
SAMUEL MAGAW, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia.
ROBERT BLACKWELL, D.D., Senior Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH G. J. BEND, Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH PILMORE, Rector of the United Churches of Trinity, St. Thomas, and All Saints.
GERARDUS CLARKSON, } Lay Deputies
TENCH COXE, } from the State
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, } of Pennsylva-
SAMUEL POWEL, } nia.
DELAWARE
JOSEPH COWDEN, A.M., Rector of St. Anne's.
ROBERT CLAY, Rector of Emanuel and St. James's Churches.
MARYLAND
JOHN BISSETT, A.M., Rector of Shrews bury Parish, Kent County.
JOHN RUMSEY, } Lay
CHARLES GOLDSBOROUGH, } Deputies.
VIRGINIA
JOHN BRACKEN, Rector of Bruton Parish, Williamsburg.
ROBERT ANDREWS, Lay Deputy.
SOUTH CAROLINA
ROBERT SMITH, D.D., Rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston.
WILLIAM SMITH, } Lay Deputies from
WILLIAM BRISBANE, } the State of South Carolina.
Note the many features in common with the version we have today, as well as the provisions that have been greatly expanded (e.g., Art. V, on how dioceses form and join) and that were subsequently dropped altogether (e.g., the last sentence of Art. 2, as discussed and explained in the paper by Mark McCall published by the Anglican Communion Institute [see n. 44 and the text at that point]; repealed as part of the overhaul made in 1901.) As I deem it useful, I will document additional versions of the Constitution in subsequent posts.
Monday, November 02, 2009
FOUL BALL!
From the Archdiocese of New York via TitusOneNine:
October 29, 2009
The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.
By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York
October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!
Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.
It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”
If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:
On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”
Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.
On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.
Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.
Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.
True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.
I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?
The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.
I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.
Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.
October 29, 2009
The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.
By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York
October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!
Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.
It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”
If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:
On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”
Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.
On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.
Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.
Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.
True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.
I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?
The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.
I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.
Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.
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