Diocese in Court Tommorrow vs. St. Andrew's, Syracuse

From Transfigurations:

Dear Readers,

Today is a day of prayer and fasting for the people of St. Andrew's Church, Syracuse, NY ending with a prayer vigil at the church tonight at 7:00 pm.

Tomorrow, at 10:00 am there will be a court appearance before Judge James Murphy where lawyers for the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York and Bishop Skip Adams will be attempting to stop the transfer of all monies within the church, effectively shutting the church down. Attorneys Raymond Dague and Robert Genant will present oral arguments to counter these motions and are seeking to dismiss the bishop's lawsuit to seize St. Andrew's Church.

Please be at prayer for us today and tomorrow! -Pat Dague

"Our prayers lay the track down by which God's power can come. Like a mighty locamotive His power is irresistable, but it cannot reach us without rails." Watchman Nee


A Roundup of Links from Central NY


What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-39

ECUSA: A Clear Decision to Walk Apart

http://www.americananglican.org/atf/cf/%7B0124EFED-8D9A-4067-9C7C-969A768F1648%7D/GC06-Summary.pdf

Editor's Note

DCNY has taken a small change in direction due to some information that the editor has received about what information parishioners are receiving from their parish priests. I have been told that parishioners in the Diocese of Central NY are not being informed about what is going on at the national level of The Episcopal Church, nor what is happening in the Anglican Communion. Apparently, parish priests in our diocese believe that the best course of action is keeping their people in the dark about the realignment that is happening in ecusa and the Anglican Communion. DCNY will continue to publish articles that pertain to actions within our diocese, but also articles that explain what is going on nationally and internationally. The light of Christ is shining out in remarkable ways in ecusa as parishes aligned with the Anglican Communion Network and other Anglican bodies in the United States and Canada are joining to work together for the kingdom of God. Thanks be to God.

Forward in Faith: The new shape of Anglicanism is a reality

Bishop Ackerman addressed delegates at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS, IL: (August 27, 2006)---A spirit of joy, hopefulness, unity and prayer enveloped the jubilant opening choral Evensong which brought together Anglicans from around the United States, and even the world, as they united in body, mind, spirit and common purpose joining their collective voices in praise and petition as Forward in Faith-North America's (FiF-NA) 2006 Assembly got underway Thursday (Aug. 24) and will continue through Saturday (Aug. 26).

Resplendent in a vivid red cope -- honoring the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew - and a muted gold mitre FiF-NA President, the Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman, Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy, challenged and electrified nearly 100 Forward in Faith delegates, spanning the spectrum of various American Anglican expressions telling his fellow churchmen that they had to reach out to those fellow current and former Episcopalians and who have been marginalized and betrayed by the actions of the recent Episcopal General Convention which handed the headdress of the presiding bishop into feminine hands and basically ignored the call from the Windsor Report to repentance.

"We are the Church," Bp. Ackerman declared. "We have to stop defending and start doing."

The bishop said he was excited by the fact that he felt the new shape of Anglicanism was a reality in America. The actual beginning of American Anglican realignment started a year ago.

"Realignment has started," he proclaimed. "We gather to celebrate what Jesus Christ has done to bring us to this present moment."

The agony and suffering traditional Anglicans have experienced during the past three and a half decades has been the seedbed of sacrifice and prayer which is bringing about a renewal and reforming of face of American Anglicanism.

Bp. Ackerman said that Episcopalians and other traditional Anglicans have been experiencing the various stages of grieving for a long time as they saw their church implode from within. The disbelief, the anger, the bargaining, and depression have gripped the members of the Episcopal Church taking them on a spiritual and emotional rollercoaster of thoughts, feeling and spirituality. "We are not the victim," he said. "We must no longer as if we are victims."

For years traditional Episcopalians have felt victimized and marginalized by the national church. They have seen their traditional Anglo-Catholic faith threatened, eroded and collapse as one by one their clearly understood hallmarks of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith have been questioned, ridiculed and in many cased rejected for a pabulum of relevancy, irreverency, tolerance and non discriminating inclusion resulting in a total breakdown of faith and morals which has left the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA) with a non-celibate gay bishop, a female presiding bishop-elect, a confused, betrayed and spiritually wounded membership and dwindling communicant numbers.

The faith once delivered to the Apostles has been tossed out in an attempt to dilute the Gospel and provide cheap grace, meaning that anything goes and that no matter how unorthodox and extreme one is -- in the name of justice -- s/he is accepted and acceptable to the "church". As a result the demands of faith, the encounter with the Cross and the burden and pain of the Cross, have been compromised by the world and modern culture.

Bp. Ackerman explained that as Anglican Christians seeking to see the fullness of Anglican faith and practice stabilized in the United States that they are called to be Simon of Cyrene, who was taken from the crowd to help carry Christ's Cross along the road to Calvary.

"We are the people in the crowd dragged out of the crowd to carry the Cross for Jesus," Bp. Ackerman clarified. "We are Simon of Cyrene."

"God trusts us," he said "Look to the Cross and to the tomb to see God's own salvific action."

The FiF-NA president said that the umbrella organization was a movement within the church was charged to bring the Church (the active, vibrant Body of Christ) to those who know no church. In part it is FiF-NA's responsibly to ensure that Anglican sacraments were secured and maintained with certainly, surety and consultation.

END

ROC & ECUSA: 815 Not Happy

815 (as in 815 Second Avenue in NYC) is not pleased with the overture made by the Russian Orthodox Church to the Anglican Communion Network. David Virtue reports:

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH wants to restore ecumenical relations with dioceses in the Episcopal Church that have asked for Alternative Primatial Oversight since the 75th General Convention, an August 23 letter from Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad states. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan welcomed the overture while noting that the Russian Church does not ordain women to the diaconate and presbyterate, a matter that "may impede the recognition," he wrote. In addition to Duncan, Kirill's letter was addressed to Bishops Edward Salmon of South Carolina and John-David Schofield of San Joaquin.

Miffed by this move, Episcopal Bishop Christopher Epting, deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations for TEC, accused the Russian Orthodox Church of "unilateralism". That church broke off talks with the TEC after Robinson's consecration. He issued the following statement: "The Episcopal Church's position on the full equality of women and men in the light of the Christian Gospel is already well known and is nothing of which we are ashamed. The Episcopal Church has regularly declined to comment or take sides on divisive issues within any of our ecumenical partners, and we have no intention of doing so now. We have always honored the jurisdictional boundaries of our ecumenical partners and have not attempted to interfere in others' internal conflicts."

ABC in Telegraph

Gays must change, says archbishop
Jonathan Wynne-Jones
(Filed: 27/08/2006)

The archbishop of Canterbury has told homosexuals that they need to change their behaviour if they are to be welcomed into the church, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Rowan Williams has distanced himself from his one-time liberal support of gay relationships and stressed that the tradition and teaching of the Church has in no way been altered by the Anglican Communion's consecration of its first openly homosexual bishop.

The declaration by the archbishop - rebutting the idea that homosexuals should be included in the church unconditionally - marks a significant development in the church's crisis over homosexuals. According to liberal and homosexual campaigners, it confirmed their fears that the archbishop has become increasingly conservative - and sparked accusations that he has performed an "astonishing" U-turn over the homosexual issue.

Liberals who had previously hailed his appointment said they are dismayed that he appears to have turned his back on an agenda that he previously championed.

However, the archbishop's comments have received strong support from traditionalists. The Rev Rod Thomas, a spokesman for the evangelical pressure group Reform, said: "There is no doubt that he is distancing himself from the views that he has previously expressed. He's right to want to see people converted. The fact that he's saying this is a hugely welcome development."

The revelations came in a newspaper interview last week in which the archbishop denied that it was time for the church to accept homosexual relationships, suggesting that it should be welcoming rather than inclusive. "I don't believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don't say 'Come in and we ask no questions'. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions," he told a Dutch journalist.

"Ethics is not a matter of a set of abstract rules, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. That applies to sexual ethics."

At the same time he tried to distance himself from a controversial essay he wrote 20 years ago, in which he defended same-sex love. "That was when I was a professor, to stimulate debate," he claimed. "It did not generate much support and a lot of criticism - quite fairly on a number of points."

The archbishop said that he was determined to preserve the unity of the church from being destroyed by the warring factions in the gay crisis. He said he has backed a resolution which says that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.

The Rev Giles Goddard, the chairman of Inclusive Church, a liberal group, said the archbishop's comments revealed an "astonishing" change in his position. He added: "The implication is that there is no justification in scripture for the welcome of lesbian and gay people. It appears that he has moved into the conservative camp."

Chris Bryant, a homosexual Labour MP, said that many people would feel betrayed by the archbishop's comments. "The Church of England wouldn't survive without gay clergy in inner cities.

"People will feel this is a huge betrayal. Rowan has refashioned the Church of England into a narrow-minded, conservative sect."

Liberals, meanwhile challenged the archbishop's attempt to downplay his involvement in the homosexual movement, claiming that he had in fact played a significant role in spearheading moves to make the Anglican Church more tolerant.

In 1989, while professor of divinity at Oxford University, he founded the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality - a group that set out to combat bigotry towards homosexuals, this newspaper has learnt. At the time it was launched, he said: "The pressure that some church figures put upon people of differing sexual identities is a greater disgrace than anything else seen in the church."

A Lambeth Palace spokesman said of the archbishop's latest comments: "They do not represent a departure from the Christian understanding of sexual relationships."

N.Y. judge rules church separating from PCUSA can keep its property

By John H. Adams
The Layman Online
Thursday, August 24, 2006
________________________________________
A state judge in New York's Supreme Court system has ruled that the Hudson
River Presbytery has no claim to the property of the now independent Church
of Ridgebury.

The decision was a big, if temporary, victory for a tiny congregation -
membership 29 at the end of 1995, according to PCUSA records - that voted
unanimously on Jan. 10, 2005, to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The leaders of the congregation announced their departure by warning that
any attempt by the presbytery or the denomination to claim the church's
property "will be deemed slander of title, compensable by damages, and any
entry onto Ridgebury Church property by any officer and/or agent of the
Presbytery of Hudson River shall be deemed criminal trespass."

The presbytery and the Rev. Richard H. Spierling, chairman of the
presbytery's administrative commission, were undeterred. They filed a
lawsuit claiming that the property belongs to the denomination. The
complaint named as the defendants individual trustees, a denominationally
recommended strategy intended to warn elders and trustees that they could
incur personal liability amounting to thousands of dollars each if they
persisted in their local church ownership claims.

But New York Judge John K. McGuirk ruled on behalf of the congregation on
August 15, issuing a 10-page decision that declared that the Ridgebury
congregation was not obligated to submit to the hierarchical claims of the
denomination.

Deciding the case under "neutral principles of law," as recommended by the
U.S. Supreme Court, McGuirk turned aside the PCUSA's argument that it is the
rightful owner of the property under the denomination's property trust
requirement in chapter 8 of the Book of Order.

Under New York law, McGuirk said, "It is hornbook [rudimentary] property law
that only the owner of real property can convey an interest in the property;
B cannot create a future interest in A's property without A's consent."
McGuirk said the congregation's property deeds never mentioned the
Presbyterian Church (USA).

Attorneys for the presbytery and the PCUSA argued that Ridgebury silently
assented to the trust clause for 25 years before voting to leave the
denomination.

McQuirk acknowledged that there was some legitimacy to that argument.
However, he ruled, "mere silence and continuing its membership in the
denominational church, absent more, is an insufficient expression of an
intent to express a trust."

His ruling cited section 13 of New York's Restatement of Trusts: "[a] trust
is created only if the settler properly manifests an intention to create a
trust relationship." He also cited a comment on that section: "[t]he
manifestation of intention requires an external expression of intention as
distinguished from undisclosed intention."

"The only affirmative actions on defendants' part on this subject since 1981
were their explicit manifestation not to hold their property for the benefit
of plaintiffs," McQuirk said.

The attorney for Ridgebury is Don Nichol of Jacobowitz & Gubits, Walden,
N.Y. , who also represented Circleville Presbyterian Church during its
separation process from the Presbytery of Hudson River. After a 72-2
congregational vote in December 2002 to leave the PCUSA, Circleville
negotiated its dismissal by paying the presbytery $112,000 - then the
equivalent of $1,120 per member. Circleville is now affiliated with the
Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Some of Nichol's strategies for litigation include a historic overview of
Presbyterian understanding of property ownership. In a commentary published
recently on The Layman Online, Nichol cites statements in The Book of
Confessions that he says support a local congregation's ownership of its
property when those claims are challenged by the denomination. The Book of
Confessions and the Book of Order together make up the Constitution of the
PCUSA.

Presbyterians have always considered the highest authority is Scripture,
with the confessions second and the Book of Order third.

Nichol was on vacation Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

The presbytery posted a copy of the decision on its Web site and a brief
note saying that the "Presbytery Council will now be reviewing options.
Please keep all parties in your prayers for the peace, unity and purity of
the Church."

It was signed by Spierling, a minister who was once excluded from membership
in the Presbytery of Palisades in a disciplinary action; Hudson River's new
executive presbyter, former General Assembly Moderator Susan Andrews; and
the presbytery's stated clerk, Harriet Sandmeier.

The Layman Online contacted Spierling's church office today and asked that
he return the call. He did not.

Christopher Johnson Considers the Future of ECUSA

From the Midwest Conservative Journal:

Last June, I suggested that the passage of ECUSA's Resolution B033(which urges dioceses not to elect practicing homosexual bishops) and particularly Frank Griswold's and Katharine Jefferts Schori's advocacy of it just might mean that, "Kate Schori’s primacy may be over before it has even begun." The rise of groups like Wake Up and and The Episcopal Majority suggests that Bishop Schori's problems might not all come from the right.

Granted, both of these are basically web sites and nothing more at this point although some well-connected names(Susan Russell, Katie Sherrod, Elizabeth Kaeton, Louie Crew and others) have affirmed the goals of one or the other or both. And since 20 ECUSA bishops declared B033 dead-on-arrival before the ink was dry, one has to assume that these groups have or will have some episcopal support:

What do these groups believe? Well, the so-called "via media" tolerate-a-wide-variety-of-viewpoints dodge, if it ever really existed, is officially dead. The Episcopal Majority wants:

To Build a National Coalition of Individuals and Groups
Who Are Committed to the Values and Vitality of The Episcopal Church

And who:

Affirm the orthodoxy of our Church, and its adherence to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
Affirm the traditional Anglican values of national autonomy and toleration of views involving matters of Church discipline
Affirm the consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson and the full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in the sacramental life of the Church
Oppose all attempts at home and abroad to curb or demean this Church, dismember it or evict it from the Anglican Communion
Desire to establish ties with national churches or groups abroad who are sympathetic to The Episcopal Church

In other word, Robbie's no longer negotiable. And Wake Up is as inclusive as hell as long as you're not a bigot fundamentalist orthodox Christian.

WAKE UP is a coalition of concerned Episcopalians who seek a Full Inclusion Church.

We came into being during the summer of 2006, following the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. While pleased at the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop, we experienced the passage of Resolution B-033 as a betrayal of the Church’s professed acceptance of lesbian and gay Christians as full members of the Body of Christ. We also view with alarm the attempts of some, both within and outside the Episcopal Church, to move us in a direction of exclusion, intolerance, and dogmatic "purity codes" that have never been part of the Anglican heritage.

Our primary purpose is to TAKE ACTION to STOP THE APPEASEMENT of theological bullies, and protect the Anglican heritage of inclusion and openness that has been passed down to us.

Neither group much cares for Rowan Williams these days. The Episcopal Majority:

For some time now we have been dismayed at the actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to wit:

the Archbishop’s quick disapproval of the actions of our General Convention;
his approval of a "two-tiered" Anglicanism;
his continued support (implicit or explicit) of those forces in The Episcopal Church seeking our displacement within the Anglican Communion;
his support - through his appointment of legates - of a gathering of so called "Windsor bishops," those who have themselves denounced our General Convention; and
his support of the missionary endeavor in America (CANA) under the auspices of the Church of Nigeria, despite the fact that such an effort was explicitly forbidden by the Windsor Report which the Archbishop otherwise upholds.

Wake Up:

By what authority is Archbishop Rowan Williams calling for meetings of bishops of the Episcopal Church? The Presiding Bishop has now been reduced to someone merely to be “consulted” about the meeting, while the Archbishop, apparently, decides who attends.

Toward the outgoing Presiding Bishop, though, Wake Up is positively scathing:

Although Presiding Bishop-elect Jefferts Schori will attend the meeting she will not do so with much authority. Bishop Griswold will still be our Primate. The timing of the meeting leads to the suspicion that Archbishop Williams wants to pressure Bishop Griswold one last time. Bishop Griswold has often succumbed to pressure and in the process become the enforcer of the Episcopal Church’s policy of appeasement toward the hate-mongers and fundamentalists of the Anglican Communion, led by Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria.

EMAIL PRESIDING BISHOP GRISWOLD NOW and tell him that he has sacrificed the rights of gay people in our church long enough.

And to think. It's supposedly orthodox Christians who are "obsessed" with human sexuality.

What does all this mean? Their smack aside, the views of these people are not in the majority although I think it's certain that a not-inconsiderable number of bishops and laity support them. So if Katharine Jefferts Schori gets an invitation to the upcoming Anglican Primates meeting(a big if), she'll have absolutely no room to maneuver. If she tacks too hard toward these people, then she alienates Episcopal moderates.

And if she tacks too far in the other direction? These two groups have made their feelings clear. As mentioned above, one of the things TEM wants to accomplish this November is to, "to establish ties with national churches or groups abroad who are sympathetic to The Episcopal Church." Wake Up is pretty up-front:

We value the unity of the Anglican Communion, but not at the price of appeasement and injustice.

Which brings up the $64,000 question: what if Lambeth drops the hammer? What if it becomes apparent that ECUSA's Anglican days are numbered? Then all bets are off. ECUSA or at least this segment of it, immediately begins planning its leftist "Anglican Communion" and calls a meeting of all interested US, Canadian, English and any other interested bishops. Although I don't know what this would to them legally, a fair number of English bishops would shake Canterbury's dust from their feet and throw in with the Americans as would South Africa and the Diocese of New Westminster.

Would every diocese and parish follow 815 out? Doubtful. Some would(Missouri, my former diocese, would probably be one of them) but I think that a great many others would not. A great many fence-sitting dioceses[cough, TEXAS, cough] and parishes who were queasy about Robbie's pointy hat but who stayed put for the sake of Episcopal "unity" would not be able to put the decision off any longer.

Would Jefferts Schori follow 815 out? Ultimately I think she would since the alternative would be heading a church whose theology would be almost diametrically opposed to her own. Although I think she would avoid it as long as she possibly can. Historicity, "apostolic succession," and all that.

This, of course, leads to an even more interesting question. Would 815 sue those dioceses and parishes that didn't want to join the new Anglican order? Would bishops who still wanted to be Anglican be brought up on "abandonment of communion" charges? Would George Wayne Smith here in Missouri, say, sue to oust a parish from its meeting house that wanted to remain officially associated with Canterbury?

I'm not sure they would. Because if radical ECUSA starts filing charges and deposing bishops right and left, then it's entirely likely that dioceses and parishes who previously didn't want to be associated with the Anglican Communion Network before would be almost forced to take shelter with it. And with the support it's currently receiving from other traditions, the Network's triumph would be pretty close to complete.

The Russian Orthodox Church offers to restore relations with the Diocese of Pittsburgh and other dioceses.

Bishop Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh welcomed an offer by the Russian Orthodox Church to restore ecumenical relations with the Diocese of Pittsburgh and other American dioceses who have asked for Alternative Primatial Oversight. Following the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, the Russian Orthodox Church ended all ecumenical contacts with the Episcopal Church USA.

The letter from Metropolitan Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, which was delivered on August 21 to the diocesan offices, states, “the Russian Orthodox Church supports your act and expresses willingness to restore relations with your diocese.”

“Our intent has always been to remain in mainstream Christianity, even while much of the Episcopal Church chooses another course. Recognition that we desire to be in that mainstream by one of the major historic Christian churches is very meaningful to us,” said Bishop Duncan. Some 90 million people around the world are Russian Orthodox.

Bishop Duncan added that he has offered a clarification in his response to Metropolitan Kirill. “There is one matter, about which I must humbly advise you, that may impede the recognition you so graciously propose. Among the dioceses that Pittsburgh leads are dioceses that do ordain women to the diaconate and presbyterate, just as do many of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Under these circumstances would the Russian Orthodox Church still be willing to recognize those dioceses in our fellowship that share this practice, Pittsburgh being among them?,” wrote Bishop Duncan in a letter sent on August 25.

Bishop Duncan also added that he hoped ultimately ecumenical relations could be restored for all those Episcopalians and Anglicans in the United States that have come together in the Anglican Communion Network and the Common Cause Roundtable. “As Metropolitan Kirill notes, The Russian Orthodox Church has had a long, fruitful and affectionate relationship with American Anglicans. May God grant us many years of renewed Christian friendship and partnership.”

Central New York Diocese: Lawyers for St. Andrew's Church File Papers Against Episcopal Diocese

August 24, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Raymond J. Dague 315-422-2052
http://www.DagueLaw.com

The lawsuit by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York to seize St. Andrews Church in Syracuse was dealt a setback today as lawyers for the parish filed motions against the diocese. The motions claim that the diocesan lawsuit is “frivolous” and ask that the case against the parish, the rector, and the members of the vestry be dismissed, and that the diocese pay the legal fees for the parish.

When the diocese sued the parish last month, they neglected to tell the court that there was a precedent in New York for Free Churches to be independent of diocesan control, even if they had been affiliated with an Episcopal diocese for many years. The lawyers for the parish discovered the precedent, and are using it to challenge the bishop’s lawsuit. St. Andrews has been a Free Church under New York law since its incorporation in 1903, but the diocese claims a “Dennis Canon” trust on the parish property anyway, even though the deeds are in the name of St. Andrews, and the people of the parish put up the money to buy and maintain the property.

“This Free Church issue was squarely addressed in a 1995 case in Poughkeepsie, New York. In that case the court rejected the position of another Episcopal diocese, and said that a Free Church is not subject to diocesan control,” said Raymond Dague, attorney for St. Andrews and the parish members who have been sued. “But the diocese of Central New York either overlooked that case, or did not want the court here to know about it.”

The case is on for Friday, September 1st for oral argument of all of the motions including a motion by the diocese for an injunction to prevent money transfers at the parish, and St. Andrew’s motions to dismiss. Dague has been quoted previously as saying that if the diocese got their injunction that such an order would effectively shut the church down.

Bishop Gladstone “Skip” Adams sued the parish after St. Andrews declared the Archbishop of Rwanda to be its spiritual authority rather than the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York.

The bishop and the parish were on the opposite sides of a controversy over homosexual bishops and the authority of Scripture which has engulfed the Episcopal Church for the last few years. St. Andrews adheres to the traditional teaching of the church that sex outside of marriage is prohibited by the Bible, while the Bishop and the leaders of the diocese have been outspoken supporters of the homosexual bishop of New Hampshire who divorced his wife to live with his male partner.

St. Andrews Church is a member of the Anglican Communion Network which seeks to be faithful to the traditional teachings of the Church. In the weeks following the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in June of 2006, seven entire dioceses (also Anglican Communion Network members) have disavowed the leadership of the national church and of the newly elected presiding bishop of the church, and have appealed to the archbishop of Canterbury over the same issue.

Over the last three years, twenty-two of 38 primates of the World Wide Anglican Communion have declared broken or impaired communion with The Episcopal Church (TEC) because of this issue, and the vast majority of the Anglican Communion believes TEC has abandoned the faith and practice of Anglicanism as well as historic Christian teaching.

Russian Orthodox Church Leader Writes Bp. Duncan

23 August 2006, 14:58
Moscow Patriarchate in solidarity with American Episcopalian bishops who refused to support the woman leader of their Church

Moscow, August 23, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church has expressed its support for the bishops of the Episcopal Church in the USA who decided to refrain from recognizing Catherine Jefferts-Shori as the leader elect of this organization.

‘I would like to assure you that I fully share the stand you have taken... the Russian Orthodox Church supports your act and expresses willingness to restore relations with your diocese’, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad says in his letter to Bishop Duncan of Pittsburg, Bishop Salmon of South Carolina and Bishop Scofield of San Joaquin.

Earlier they signed a letter explaining that they refused to support the new leader of the Episcopal Church because the old church tradition was violated.

The metropolitan reminded his addressees of ‘not an easy step’ taken by the Russian Church on December 26, 2003, when it discontinued contacts with the Episcopal Church in the USA because of the episcopal ‘consecration’ of Jene Robinson, an open homosexual.

‘Through this act, the sinful way of life strictly condemned by Holy Scriptures has been supported by church leaders - the fact that defies any reasonable explanation’, the metropolitan stressed.

He expressed the conviction that liberal secular ideas, whatever one’s personal attitude to them may be, ‘cannot and must not adjust the Apostolic Tradition and the understanding of New Testament texts guarded by this Tradition’.

‘Any attempt to adjust Christian morality and especially the church order to the political tastes of an external environment is dangerous as it threatens with a loss of Christian identity’, the Russian church hierarch affirmed.

He also added that earlier the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Churches stated its openness ‘to contacts and cooperation with those American Episcopalians who remain faithful to the gospel’s moral teaching’.

Archbishop Williams: American Church has 'Pushed the Boundaries'

From The Living Church:
08/22/2006

The Archbishop of Canterbury is under growing pressure to respond in a
meaningful way to dioceses and parishes alienated by recent stands on
sexuality enacted by the General Convention. Shortly after announcing a
mid-September summit to find a way to resolve the divisions within The
Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams said in an interview with a
Dutch newspaper the Anglican Communion is capable of avoiding a future in
which lawsuits over property are all-consuming.

"In terms of decision-making, the American Church has pushed the
boundaries," Archbishop Williams told Nederlands Dagblad. "It has made a
decision that is not the decision of the wider body of Christ. In terms of
the issue under consideration: there are enough Christians of good faith in
every denomination - from evangelical to Roman Catholic - to whom it is not
quite so self-evident, who are not absolutely sure that we have always read
the Bible correctly. They are saying: this is an issue we must talk about.
But if we are going to have time to discuss this prayerfully, thoughtfully,
we really don't need people saying: we must change it now. The discussion
must not be foreclosed by a radical agenda."

Archbishop Williams described the situation in The Episcopal Church as
highly complicated and said he has delayed responding to the dioceses which
have requested alternate primatial oversight because he does not want to
"make up church law on the back of an envelope." He also has "great concern
for the vast majority of Episcopal Christians in the U.S. who don't wish to
move away from the Communion at all, but who don't particularly want to join
a separatist part of their Church either. I want to give them time to find
what the best way is." He is aware, however, that the Anglican Communion
Network won't "hold out" under the present circumstances indefinitely.

"If Canterbury doesn't help, there will be other provinces that are very
ready to help," he said. "I don't especially want to see the Anglican Church
becoming like the Orthodox Church, where in some American cities you see the
Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Orthodox
Church. I don't want to see in the cities of America the American Anglican
Church, the Nigerian Anglican Church, the Egyptian Anglican Church and the
English Anglican Church in the same street."

A split in The Episcopal Church would likely have repercussions for the
Church of England, according to Archbishop Williams as clergy and
congregations are forced to decide where their loyalties lie.

"My nightmare is that action is now going forward that will tie us up in law
courts in 10 years, in disputes about property," he said. "That would take
so much energy from what we're meant to be doing. We can prevent those
endless lawsuits, I think, if there is enough co-operation in the central
mission of the Church. If that work continues it may also help us in finding
those structures."

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY CALLS SUMMIT

August 18, 2006


At the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Robert Duncan and
I have agreed to participate in a two day consultation next month that will
address the controversies and divisions in the Episcopal Church that are
impacting the entire Anglican Communion. The meeting will be co-chaired by
Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia and Bishop John Lipscomb of Southwest Florida.
The Presiding Bishop and the Presiding Bishop-elect will also participate.
Archbishop Rowan Williams will be represented by Canon Kenneth Kearon,
Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.

In accordance with the Archbishop's instructions, we are each to bring along
another Bishop to share in these deliberations, and we have asked Bishop Ed
Salmon of South Carolina and Bishop James Stanton of Dallas to join us.
All four of us are member Bishops in the Anglican Communion Network and our
dioceses have requested alternative primatial oversight from the Archbishop
of Canterbury.

We are grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for his efforts to broker a
cease fire in our current conflicts and to assist us in finding a way to
work through the impasse we have reached. If things go well at this initial
meeting, additional dates have been set aside to continue our deliberations
in the future. Your prayers are asked for the participants as we seek a way
forward for a church in crisis.

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
Date: 8/18/2006

Allen to Bruno

This is the third piece of a give and take between Charlotte Allen and Bishop Bruno. The first piece is two posts down, to which Bp. Bruno responded with a full-page ad. This is Allen's response to the ad. Ed.

Charlotte Allen Responds to "Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity" Ad by Bishop Bruno

Charlotte Allen writes:

Back in early July, right after the Episcopal Church USA finished its general convention, declining to “repent”—as requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury—of its confirmation of the openly gay, openly cohabitating V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, I wrote an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times . The gist of my article was that the Episcopalians’ capitulation to secular liberal culture hadn’t simply catapulted their church into severe demographic decline”—a drop of nearly one million members since 1965, and a median number of eighty worshippers per church on any given Sunday—but its literal disintegration.

In the wake of the convention, which also included the election of a female presiding bishop in contravention of Anglican norms and a refusal to reaffirm the bedrock Christian principle that salvation comes from Jesus Christ, seven bishops of Episcopal dioceses announced they would seek oversight elsewhere in the worldwide Anglican Communion rather than from the new presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, a gay-union advocate who also prayed to a female Jesus during the conventions. The seven bishops’ decisions were precipitated by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ declaration that the Episcopal Church USA was no longer in full communion with its fellow Anglican churches, whose numbers of members dwarf those of the U.S. church by some seventy-four million.

Not long after my article appeared, an exceedingly miffed J. Jon Bruno, the Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles, took out a full-page ad in the Times accusing me of being “simplistic,” “inaccurate,” and the usual yada yada. He seemed to be making the points that (1) Who cares that the numbers are down? and (2) Maybe we can make it up by recruiting more gays. As Bruno himself put it:

At our best we [Episcopalians] are open-hearted and open-minded followers of Jesus Christ. We democratically elect our bishops, priests, and lay leaders at all levels of the church.

When a California friend sent me a copy of the article, I chuckled at what I thought must be the money quote (money as in money in the collection plate from the new gay members we hope to recruit):

We do not look for … authority in any handful of scattered, isolated [Biblical] passages selectively gathered to rationalize intolerance, cruelty, and unfairness.

Hmm, thought I—so I guess that when Jesus condemned “fornication” as “evil” in Mark 17:21, he meant that as a “isolated” passage.

But what I didn’t realize—and what came home to me only a few days later—was that at the very same time that Bishop Bruno was bloviating in his L.A. Times ad about “democratically” elected bishops and general open-mindedness and love all around, he was working behind the scenes with three of his fellow open-minded bishops to get rid of—and summarily at that, without a trial—the bishop of San Joaquin, California, John-David Schofield, one of the seven who opted for alternate oversight from Jefferts Schori’s.

Schofield’s diocese, headquartered in Fresno and experiencing a higher growth rate (as even Bruno admits) than Bruno’s own Los Angeles diocese, is one of the most conservative in the nation, and it has not taken kindly to the confirmation of Robinson in 2003. Indeed, starting in 2004, Schofield, who has been bishop since 1988, has declined to turn over any diocesan funds to the national church—and the diocese has also amended its constitution so as to make it harder for the national church to seize its property in the event of a secession. Delegates to a diocesan convention in 2005 affirmed a statement that San Joaquin’s constitution takes precedence over national church policies, and in March the diocese changed its rules so that the national church no longer has to approve its choice of bishop. I’d call that democracy.

Who gets to keep the beautiful old church building has always been the burning issue as scores of conservative Episcopalian congregations have broken off from their liberal dioceses over the past thirty years, usually over the issue of female priests and bishops, for which there seems to be no biblical authority. The dioceses usually win—but California judges ruling in these disputes have been increasingly inclined to rely on general principles of property law (such as who’s paying the bills) rather than what the bishop says (see this article in the Living Church). Furthermore, this is the first time that entire dioceses have effectively split off from the national body—and there is no precedent for turning over diocesan property to the national church.

So the bishop of California, William T. Swing, working in concert with Bruno and the bishops of San Diego and northern California, has come up with a novel theory designed to oust Schofield fast: The four bishops are arguing that Schofield intends to “abandon the communion of this Church [that is, the Episcopal Church USA].” And hell, Swing told the Living Church, it’s “unfathomable” that anyone would even try to retain church property after leaving the church.

A claim of abandonment triggers a far quicker process than normal disciplinary procedures in the Episcopal Church, which require a full ecclesiastical trial. Furthermore, as the Living Church pointed out, “there is no presumption of innocence” in an abandonment process. All it requires is a majority vote by a review panel, followed by a unanimous decision by the three Episcopal bishops with the longest tenure, followed by a decision at the next House of Bishops meeting. If all goes well for Swing, Bruno, and the others, Schofield could be out of his diocese before Jefferts Schori is invested on November 4.

So much for the vaunted democracy and open-mindedness of the Episcopal Church USA. I hope that Schofield—along with his flock, which shows no sign of disaffection—sues someone’s miter off if the national church tries to take his diocese away from him.

Bp. Bruno Responds to Op-Ed Piece

The op-ed piece that Bp. Bruno is responding to is posted below. Ed.

Bishop Bruno and Fr. Bryan Jones' "Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity" Full-Page LA Times Ad

On July 23, Bishop J. Jon Bruno and the Rev. Bryan Jones (Los Angeles Diocese) took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times; the text is below, as well as a link to the PDF showing how the ad appeared. Charlotte Allen's original article that this ad responds to is here, and her recent response to this ad is here.
PDF version of this ad is here. (Note: The file is over 2 MB. Source: Episcopal News)

Open Hearted, Open Minded Christianity

This message about the Episcopal Church has been published specifically in response to an opinion article by Charlotte Allen which was printed in The Los Angeles Times on July 9, 2006.

More importantly, it is presented out of the conviction that Orthodox Christian Faith is, and always has been by its very nature, progressive. We hope it will also serve as a response to the many public voices of criticism recently leveled at the Episcopal Church; voices whose understanding of Jesus Christ and his teachings is too often distorted by extreme political and ideological beliefs.

by The Right Reverend J. Jon Bruno
and The Reverend Bryan Jones

In recent years the Episcopal Church has acted from a firm foundation of biblical, historic faith, not on “whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct” as contended by Charlotte Allen in her diatribe against the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches (“Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins,” Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 9, 2006).

Episcopalians seek to follow Jesus’ own understanding of scripture when he identified two commandments from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” as greater than any other portions of Scripture (Matthew 22:36-40). We believe that the central biblical mandates are clear: to love, welcome, and include all people into an egalitarian Christian fellowship, in which “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11). It is in these overarching commandments and central mandates from the Bible as a whole that we find the authority of Scripture. We do not look for that authority in any handful of scattered, isolated passages selectively gathered to rationalize intolerance, cruelty or unfairness.

This basic call of God in Christ leads Christians in each age to new awareness of still unresolved divisions and unaddressed exclusions in the Church and in society. In our own times, this dynamic has led the Episcopal Church and many other American churches into conflicts over injustice and oppression against people of color, the poor, and immigrants, as well as over the equality of women and the full humanity of gay and lesbian people.

Our current conflicts are real but should not be overblown. Out of over 7,000 congregations nationwide fewer than 150 have sought to leave the Episcopal Church. Out of 111 dioceses, seven are seeking ecclesiastical oversight from someone other than our newly elected Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori while making it clear that they do not wish to leave the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church is open to all people regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. Within the broad parameters of essential Christian conviction and practice, it celebrates a diversity of opinions and positions on many issues. We are bound together by common prayer and shared worship, so we have no need to impose uniformity in thought and doctrine. At our best we are open-hearted and open-minded followers of Jesus Christ. We democratically elect our bishops, priests, and lay leaders at all levels of the church. We respect each person’s right to conscience. We know our understanding is limited and often mistaken but we strive together to hear God’s voice in Scripture, in the tradition of the Church and in our God-given capacities to think and feel, to reflect and to learn.

Charlotte Allen paints a picture of the Episcopal Church in particular and the American religious landscape in general that is simplistic and inaccurate. In her view churches can be neatly divided into denominations which are declining because of their liberalism and denominations which are growing because they are conservative. Reality, as usual, is a bit more complex. The Episcopal Church was never simply “the Republican Party at prayer.” It always has been and still is home to people who are both theologically and politically conservative, moderate and liberal. It is the church of Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, but also of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a life long active Episcopalian whose social conscience was formed by the Episcopal schools of his youth. Even the Southern Baptists are more diverse than their commonly assigned caricature suggests. The last three Baptist Presidents were named Truman, Carter and Clinton.

Declining Church membership and attendance is a broader phenomenon as well. The Southern Baptist Convention now publicly worries that its plateaued membership numbers and declining baptism rates augur future decline. Some recent studies reveal that attendance has started to decline in evangelical congregations and conservative megachurches as well. It is true that the overall membership of the Episcopal Church has declined since the 1960s. But it also true that a majority of its dioceses experienced increases in their active members (communicants) between 1993 and 2003. For example, here in California the “liberal” diocese of Los Angeles and the “conservative” diocese of San Joaquin grew at nearly equal rates (13.9% with 1,018 new communicants for San Joaquin and 12% with 5,869 new communicants for Los Angeles).

Christianity in North America is moving through a great historic transition which may have first expressed itself among mainline denominations, but is not stopping there. We have moved into an era where, regardless of nominal identifications, only a minority of Americans are active, church-going Christians of any stripe. The rivers of societal sanctions and cultural norms no longer flow through church doors, depositing people in the pews. Today the majority of Americans no longer fear either social ostracism or eternal damnation when they choose not to go church. The palpable tone of hostile resentment in so many public voices of American Christianity today arises out of grief at the passing of that socially conventional church. But we are convinced that its passing is all to the good. Too often the motivation of religious fear bore the bitter fruit of anxious lives and judgmental communities, hardly the joyous fruits of the Spirit to which the poetry of St. Paul sings praises (Galatians 5:22-23). Far better for churches of any size to be filled with people who have consciously chosen to sing praises faithfully and gratefully towards the loving God they find there.

And while we are at it, let’s sing a few praises for Katharine Jefferts Schori, newly elected as the first woman Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Her ministry continues to embody what Christian churches in the 21st century should be about. Her vision for the Church calls us beyond the current disputes to Christ’s call to comfort the mourning, feed the hungry, and preach good news to the poor.

Every week in tens of thousands of churches, including Episcopal congregations, people are quietly living into that vision by caring for their neighbors. A recent study from the University of Chicago revealed that presently 50% of Americans report they have fewer than three people in their lives they can confide in. Twenty-five percent report they have no one to confide in at all. In such unprecedented social isolation, loneliness may be the hunger and poverty that is shared most often by people at all levels of our society. Although we make no claims that it is the only place where a life different from this can be found, we know the local Episcopal congregation offers a blessed alternative. There you will find a faith community where people know and care for each other; respect differences, and share the presence of God, whose love passes all our understanding.

Jon Bruno is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Bryan Jones is Rector of St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Long Beach.

We in the Episcopal Church strive to be open minded, open hearted followers of Jesus Christ through:

Offering Christ-centered Sunday worship

Finding the authority of Scripture in the Bible as a whole, with Jesus’ command to love God and love our neighbor as its central mandate

Affirming the essentials of Christian Faith and Practice

Celebrating a diversity of opinions on the many issues of faith and practice

Respecting each person’s conscience and dignity

Welcoming all people as God’s children without regard to race, gender or sexual orientation

To find an Episcopal Church near you, visit us at our website: www.ladiocese.org

To ask any questions or share your comments, leave a voice mail message at 1.800.366.1536, extension 283

Or send an email message to BishopsOffice@ladiocese.org

Op-Ed from The Los Angeles Times

July 10, 2006
Liberal Christianity is paying for its sins

Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

July 9, 2006
By Charlotte Allen, CHARLOTTE ALLEN is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."

The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.

Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.

Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating.

It is not entirely coincidental that at about the same time that Episcopalians, at their general convention in Columbus, Ohio, were thumbing their noses at a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion that they "repent" of confirming the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire three years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA, at its general assembly in Birmingham, Ala., was turning itself into the laughingstock of the blogosphere by tacitly approving alternative designations for the supposedly sexist Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Among the suggested names were "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer and Friend." Moved by the spirit of the Presbyterian revisionists, Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a "Name That Trinity" contest. Entries included "Rock, Scissors and Paper" and "Larry, Curly and Moe."

Following the Episcopalian lead, the Presbyterians also voted to give local congregations the freedom to ordain openly cohabiting gay and lesbian ministers and endorsed the legalization of medical marijuana. (The latter may be a good idea, but it is hard to see how it falls under the theological purview of a Christian denomination.)

The Presbyterian Church USA is famous for its 1993 conference, cosponsored with the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other mainline churches, in which participants "reimagined" God as "Our Maker Sophia" and held a feminist-inspired "milk and honey" ritual designed to replace traditional bread-and-wine Communion.

As if to one-up the Presbyterians in jettisoning age-old elements of Christian belief, the Episcopalians at Columbus overwhelmingly refused even to consider a resolution affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord. When a Christian church cannot bring itself to endorse a bedrock Christian theological statement repeatedly found in the New Testament, it is not a serious Christian church. It's a Church of What's Happening Now, conferring a feel-good imprimatur on whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct.

You want to have gay sex? Be a female bishop? Change God's name to Sophia? Go ahead. The just-elected Episcopal presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a one-woman combination of all these things, having voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the Columbus convention and invited former Newark, N.J., bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ's divinity, to address her priests.

When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

It doesn't help matters that the mainline churches were pioneers in ordaining women to the clergy, to the point that 25% of all Episcopal priests these days are female, as are 29% of all Presbyterian pastors, according to the two churches. A causal connection between a critical mass of female clergy and a mass exodus from the churches, especially among men, would be difficult to establish, but is it entirely a coincidence? Sociologist Rodney Stark ("The Rise of Christianity") and historian Philip Jenkins ("The Next Christendom") contend that the more demands, ethical and doctrinal, that a faith places upon its adherents, the deeper the adherents' commitment to that faith. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which preach biblical morality, have no trouble saying that Jesus is Lord, and they generally eschew women's ordination. The churches are growing robustly, both in the United States and around the world.

Despite the fact that median Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches is 80 worshipers, the Episcopal Church, as a whole, is financially equipped to carry on for some time, thanks to its inventory of vintage real estate and huge endowments left over from the days (no more!) when it was the Republican Party at prayer. Furthermore, it has offset some of its demographic losses by attracting disaffected liberal Catholics and gays and lesbians. The less endowed Presbyterian Church USA is in deeper trouble. Just before its general assembly in Birmingham, it announced that it would eliminate 75 jobs to meet a $9.15-million budget cut at its headquarters, the third such round of job cuts in four years.

The Episcopalians have smells, bells, needlework cushions and colorfully garbed, Catholic-looking bishops as draws, but who, under the present circumstances, wants to become a Presbyterian?

Still, it must be galling to Episcopal liberals that many of the parishes and dioceses (including that of San Joaquin, Calif.) that want to pull out of the Episcopal Church USA are growing instead of shrinking, have live people in the pews who pay for the upkeep of their churches and don't have to rely on dead rich people. The 21-year-old Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, for example, is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country. Its 2,200 worshipers on any given Sunday are about equal to the number of active Episcopalians in Jefferts Schori's entire Nevada diocese.

It's no surprise that Christ Church, like the other dissident parishes, preaches a very conservative theology. Its break from the national church came after Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion, proposed a two-tier membership in which the Episcopal Church USA and other churches that decline to adhere to traditional biblical standards would have "associate" status in the communion. The dissidents hope to retain full communication with Canterbury by establishing oversight by non-U.S. Anglican bishops.

As for the rest of the Episcopalians, the phrase "deck chairs on the Titanic" comes to mind. A number of liberal Episcopal websites are devoted these days to dissing Peter Akinola, outspoken primate of the Anglican diocese of Nigeria, who, like the vast majority of the world's 77 million Anglicans reported by the Anglican Communion, believes that "homosexual practice" is "incompatible with Scripture" (those words are from the communion's 1998 resolution at the Lambeth conference of bishops). Akinola might have the numbers on his side, but he is now the Voldemort — no, make that the Karl Rove — of the U.S. Episcopal world. Other liberals fume over a feeble last-minute resolution in Columbus calling for "restraint" in consecrating bishops whose lifestyle might offend "the wider church" — a resolution immediately ignored when a second openly cohabitating gay man was nominated for bishop of Newark.

So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.

Interview with the Rector of St. Andrew's, Syracuse

Go to:
http://www.anglicantv.org/blog/index.cfm/2006/7/23/CNY-CRISIS-Interview-with-Fr-Bob-Hackendorf-pt-I

Message from Bishop Concerning Thornfield

The Finance and Investment Committee of the Diocese made a recommendation to the Diocesan Board at the August 1, 2006 Board meeting that the Thornfield property be sold. The Board has requested the Finance and Investment Committee to provide a rationale for their recommendation which will be presented to the Board at the October 3rd meeting. No action is being contemplated by the Board until the December 19th meeting.

Further information will be disseminated as it becomes available, including the rationale from the Finance and Investment Committee. It is my intent that this topic will be on the agenda for both the October Regional Meetings and Convention. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or comments on this topic, please feel free to share them with me and/or any member of the Diocesan Board (see e-mail addresses below).

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse

Something to Consider as ECUSA Continues Down the non-Windsor-compliant road- ed.

Issue No.: 247
by: Timothy J. Dailey, Ph. D.

Scandals involving the sexual abuse of under-age boys by homosexual priests have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, defenders of homosexuality argue that youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts should be forced to include homosexuals among their adult leaders. Similarly, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a homosexual activist organization that targets schools, has spearheaded the formation of "Gay-Straight Alliances" among students. GLSEN encourages homosexual teachers--even in the youngest grades--to be open about their sexuality, as a way of providing role models to "gay" students. In addition, laws or policies banning employment discrimination based on "sexual orientation" usually make no exception for those who work with children or youth.

Many parents have become concerned that children may be molested, encouraged to become sexually active, or even "recruited" into adopting a homosexual identity and lifestyle. Gay activists dismiss such concerns--in part, by strenuously insisting that there is no connection between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children.

However, despite efforts by homosexual activists to distance the gay lifestyle from pedophilia, there remains a disturbing connection between the two. This is because, by definition, male homosexuals are sexually attracted to other males. While many homosexuals may not seek young sexual partners, the evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners. In this paper we will consider the following evidence linking homosexuality to pedophilia:

· Pedophiles are invariably males: Almost all sex crimes against children are committed by men.

· Significant numbers of victims are males: Up to one-third of all sex crimes against children are committed against boys (as opposed to girls).

· The 10 percent fallacy: Studies indicate that, contrary to the inaccurate but widely accepted claims of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, homosexuals comprise between 1 to 3 percent of the population.

· Homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses: Individuals from the 1 to 3 percent of the population that is sexually attracted to the same sex are committing up to one-third of the sex crimes against children.

· Some homosexual activists defend the historic connection between homosexuality and pedophilia: Such activists consider the defense of "boy-lovers" to be a legitimate gay rights issue.

· Pedophile themes abound in homosexual literary culture: Gay fiction as well as serious academic treatises promote "intergenerational intimacy."
MALE HOMOSEXUALS COMMIT A DISPROPORTIONATE NUMBER OF CHILD SEX ABUSE CASES

Homosexual apologists admit that some homosexuals sexually molest children, but they deny that homosexuals are more likely to commit such offenses. After all, they argue, the majority of child molestation cases are heterosexual in nature. While this is correct in terms of absolute numbers, this argument ignores the fact that homosexuals comprise only a very small percentage of the population.

The evidence indicates that homosexual men molest boys at rates grossly disproportionate to the rates at which heterosexual men molest girls. To demonstrate this it is necessary to connect several statistics related to the problem of child sex abuse: 1) men are almost always the perpetrator; 2) up to one-third or more of child sex abuse cases are committed against boys; 3) less than three percent of the population are homosexuals. Thus, a tiny percentage of the population (homosexual men), commit one-third or more of the cases of child sexual molestation.
Men Account for Almost All Sexual Abuse of Children Cases

· An essay on adult sex offenders in the book Sexual Offending Against Children reported:"It is widely believed that the vast majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by males and that female sex offenders only account for a tiny proportion of offences. Indeed, with 3,000 adult male sex offenders in prison in England and Wales at any one time, the corresponding figure for female sex offenders is 12!"[1]

· Kee MacFarlane, et al., writing in Sexual Abuse of Young Children: Evaluation and Treatment report:"The large majority of sexual perpetrators appear to be males (Herman and Hirschman, 1981; Lindholm and Willey, 1983)."[2]

· A report by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children states: "In both clinical and non-clinical samples, the vast majority of offenders are male."[3]

· A study in the Journal of Sex Research states that "pedophilia does not exist, or is extremely rare, in women."[4]
A Significant Percentage of Child Sexual Abuse Victims are Boys

· According to the Journal of Child Psychiatry: "It was commonly believed fifteen years ago that girls were abused in excess of boys in a ratio of about 9 to 1, but contemporary studies now indicate that the ratio of girls to boys abused has narrowed remarkably. . . . The majority of community studies suggest a . . . ratio . . . in the order of 2 to 4 girls to 1 boy."[5] Another study found that "some authors now believe that boys may be sexually abused as commonly as girls (Groth, 1978; O'Brien, 1980)."[6]

· A study of 457 male sex offenders against children in Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that "approximately one-third of these sexual offenders directed their sexual activity against males."[7]
Sexual Abuse of Boys is Underreported

The actual percentage of child sexual abuse victims who are boys very likely exceeds the above estimates. Many researchers echo the view of the Journal of Child Psychiatry study, which refers to the "under-reporting of the incidence and prevalence of sexual abuse in boys."[8]

· Dr. Robert Johnson, in Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, reports: "The vast majority of cases of male sexual molestation is not reported. As a result, these young men keep both the incidents and their feelings to themselves."[9]

· The Department of Justice report on child sexual exploitation explains why the percentage of boy victims is underestimated: "Adolescent boy victims are highly likely to deny certain types of sexual activity. . . . They are embarrassed and ashamed of their behavior and rightfully believe that society will not understand their victimization. . . . No matter what the investigator does, most adolescent boys will deny they were victims."[10]

· The Journal of Child Psychiatry adds: "Boys are usually encultured into an ethos where self-reliance, independence and sexual prowess are valued, while showing hurt or homosexuality are denigrated. . . . This may lead to powerful repression or deletion of the experience, with failure to report."[11]
Homosexuals Comprise Less than 3 Percent of the Population

· Relying upon three large data sets: the General Social Survey, the National Health and Social Life Survey, and the U.S. census, a recent study in Demography estimates the number of exclusive male homosexuals in the general population at 2.5 percent, and the number of exclusive lesbians at 1.4 percent.[12]

· A study of the sexual behavior of men in the United States based on the National Survey of Men (a nationally representative sample comprised of 3,321 men aged twenty to thirty-nine, published in Family Planning Perspectives), found that "2 percent of sexually active men aged twenty to thirty-nine . . . had had any same-gender sexual activity during the last ten years. Approximately 1 percent of the men (1.3 percent among whites and 0.2 percent among blacks) reported having had exclusively homosexual activity.[13]

· J. Gordon Muir, writing in The Wall Street Journal, discusses a number of studies that have found that homosexuals comprise between 1 to 3 percent of the population.[14]

· In a survey of studies on homosexuals in different populations, the Archives of Sexual Behavior reported a random sample of Hawaii State residents interviewed by telephone. The study found "just about 3 percent of males and 1.2 percent of females as having engaged in same-sex or bisexual activity."[15] However, this relatively higher number is attributed to the fact that the study was not limited to exclusive homosexuals, but included all those who at some time in their lives engaged in same-sex activities.[16]
Homosexual Pedophiles are Vastly Overrepresented in Child Sex Abuse Cases

Homosexual pedophiles sexually molest children at a far greater rate compared to the percentage of homosexuals in the general population. A study in the Journal of Sex Research found, as we have noted above, that "approximately one-third of [child sex offenders] had victimized boys and two-thirds had victimized girls." The authors then make a prescient observation: "Interestingly, this ratio differs substantially from the ratio of gynephiles (men who erotically prefer physically mature females) to androphiles (men who erotically prefer physically mature males), which is at least 20 to 1."[17]

In other words, although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses.

Similarly, the Archives of Sexual Behavior also noted that homosexual pedophiles are significantly overrepresented in child sex offence cases:
The best epidemiological evidence indicates that only 2 to 4 percent of men attracted to adults prefer men (ACSF Investigators, 1992; Billy et al.,1993; Fay et al.,1989; Johnson et al.,1992); in contrast, around 25 to 40 percent of men attracted to children prefer boys (Blanchard et al.,1999; Gebhard et al.,1965; Mohr et al.,1964). Thus, the rate of homosexual attraction is 6 to 20 times higher among pedophiles."[18]

The stark imbalance between homosexual and heterosexual child molestationswas confirmed in the Archives of Sexual Behavior study itself, which divided 260 pedophile participants into three groups: "152 heterosexual pedophiles (men with offenses or self-reported attractions involving girls only), 43 bisexual pedophiles (boys and girls), and 65 homosexual pedophiles (boys only)."[19] In other words, 25 percent of the offenders were homosexual pedophiles--or 41 percent if those who molest girls as well as boys are included.

Other studies report an unusually high percentage of child molestations by homosexual pedophiles:

· A study on pedophilia in the Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa reported: "According to the literature, findings of a two-to-one ratio of heterosexual to homosexual pedophiles have been documented."[20]

· The Journal of Sex Research reports a study that included "199 offenders against female children and 96 offenders against male children. . . . This would indicate a proportional prevalence of 32 percent of homosexual offenders against children."[21]

· A study of male child sex offenders in Child Abuse and Neglect found that fourteen percent targeted only males, and a further 28 percent chose males as well as females as victims, thus indicating that 42 percent of male pedophiles engaged in homosexual molestation.[22]
ARE MEN WHO MOLEST BOYS REALLY 'HOMOSEXUALS'? Gay Apologists Insist on a Simplistic Stereotype of Pedophilia

Central to the attempts to separate homosexuality from pedophilia is the claim that pedophiles cannot, by definition, be considered homosexuals. Relying upon a questionable methodology[23], the gay advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign published a "Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation and Child Abuse," that states: "A sexual abuser who molests a child of the same sex is usually not considered homosexual."[24]

The basis for this claim is the view that pedophiles who molest boys cannot be considered homosexual if that individual has at any time been married or sexually involved with women.
'Homosexual Pedophiles': A Clinical Term

The fact is, however, that the terms "homosexual" and "pedophile" are not mutually exclusive: they describe two intersecting types of sexual attraction. Webster's Dictionary defines "homosexual" as someone who is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. "Pedophile" is defined as "an adult who is sexually attracted to young children." The former definition refers to the gender of the desired sexual object, while the latter refers to the age of the desired sexual object.

A male "homosexual pedophile," then, is defined as someone who is generally (but not exclusively, see below) sexually attracted to boys, while a female "homosexual pedophile" is sexually attracted to girls.[25]

The term "homosexual pedophile" was first used in the early 20th century by the Viennese psychiatrist Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who pioneered the systematic study of sexual deviance. Krafft-Ebing described pedophiles as heterosexually, homosexually or bisexually oriented.[26] This division has been accepted by pedophiles themselves,[27] and is well attested in the literature:

· A study of child molesters in Behavior Research and Therapy found that "a homosexual and a heterosexual subgroup can be delineated among these offenders."[28]

· The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy published a study on the same topic, which discussed "the proportional prevalences of heterosexual and homosexual pedophilia."[29] The study commented on a study that found that "the percentage of the homosexual pedophiles would be 45.8." Even adjusted downward for exhibitionists, "this would still indicate a much higher percentage (34 percent) of homosexuals among pedophiles than among men who prefer physically mature partners."[30]

· In a review of studies on pedophilia, the Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa concluded: "The findings of previous studies report that pedophiles can be divided into heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles according to their erotic preference. . . . This was confirmed in this recent study."[31] The article classified homosexual pedophilia into three types: the socially inadequate homosexual pedophile, the intrusive homosexual pedophile, and the undifferentiated homosexual pedophile.[32]

· A study of pedophiles in Behavior Research and Therapy concluded: "The second, and perhaps the most important observation we made, is that a homosexual and a heterosexual subgroup can be delineated among these offenders. . . . Categorizing them in this way revealed important differences in the pattern of their sexual preferences."[33]

· The International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology refers to homosexual pedophiles as a "distinct group." The victims of homosexual pedophiles "were more likely to be strangers, that they were more likely to have engaged in paraphiliac behavior separate from that involved in the offence, and that they were more likely to have past convictions for sexual offences. . . . Other studies [showed a] greater risk of reoffending than those who had offended against girls" and that the "recidivism rate for male-victim offenders is approximately twice that for female-victim offenders."[34]
Homosexuals and Homosexual Pedophiles Engage in a Wide Variety of Sexual Behavior that Belies Simplistic Categories

Despite this evidence, in their efforts to divorce homosexuality from pedophilia, homosexual apologists insist on a rigid, narrow definition of the terms "homosexual" and "pedophile" that permits no overlap of the terms. They deny that homosexuals are attracted in inordinate numbers to boys. They also claim that pedophiles cannot be classified as "homosexual" if at any time they have had sexual relations with women.

However, such a narrow definition does not do justice to the complex nature of pedophilia. Researchers have long been aware that pedophiles exhibit a wide variety of sexual attractions and behavior--often to draw attention away from their primary lust for boys. A study on sex offenders in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology notes that "the reason child sexual abusers are successful at remaining undetected is because they do not fit a stereotype."[35]

The data indicates that both homosexuality and pedophilia are intersecting categories that admit to a wide variety of sexual behavior:
Homosexual Males are Sexually Attracted to Underage Boys

· A study in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that homosexual men are attracted to young males. The study compared the sexual age preferences of heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, and lesbians. The results showed that, in marked contrast to the other three categories, "all but 9 of the 48 homosexual men preferred the youngest two male age categories," which included males as young as age fifteen.[36]

· In The Gay Report, by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, the authors report data showing that 73 percent of homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys sixteen to nineteen years of age or younger."[37]
Conversely, Homosexual Pedophiles are Often Attracted to Adult Males

· A study of sex offenders against male children in Behavior Research and Therapy found that male homosexual pedophiles are sexually attracted to "males of all ages." Compared to non-offenders, the offenders showed "greater arousal" to slides of nude males as old as twenty-four: "As a group, the child molesters responsed [sp] with moderate sexual arousal . . . to the nude males of all ages."[38]

· A study of Canadians imprisoned for pedophilia in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence noted that some of the adult male offenders engaged in homosexual acts with adult males.[39]

· Many pedophiles, in fact, consider themselves to be homosexual. A study of 229 convicted child molesters in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that "eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual."[40]

· Fr. John Harvey, founder and director of Courage, a support ministry for Catholics who struggle with same-sex attraction, explains that "the pedophile differs from the ordinary homosexual in that the former admires boyishness in the object of his affections, while the latter admires manliness."[41] However, the categories are not completely separate:
While granting that the majority of homosexuals are not aroused by young boys, the distinction between homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia is not quite absolute. In some cases the interest oscillates between young adolescents and adults, in others between boys and adolescents; in exceptional cases a man may be interested in boys at one time and adults at another.[42]
Many Pedophiles are Attracted to Women, Marry, and Have Children

Gay activists insist that pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality because pedophiles are only sexually interested in children, whereas homosexuals only have sexual relations with adults. We have already seen that this stereotypical view is not correct with regard to homosexuals. There is also abundant evidence demonstrating that, while primarily interested in children, pedophiles nevertheless exhibit a wide variety of sexual behaviors, including relationships with women:

· A study in Child Abuse and Neglect found that 48 percent of the offenders either were married or had been married at some time.[43]

· The Journal of Interpersonal Violence studied the sexual preferences of male pedophiles who sexually abused children. When they compared the sexual response of the pedophiles with the control group, they found, unexpectedly: "Surprisingly, the two groups did not differ in their response to the nude female stimuli."[44]

· A study in the Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa reported that "most of the middle-aged pedophiles have had significant adult sexual activity."[45] Fifty-eight percent of the pedophiles in one study had at least one child, while other research indicated that "more than two-thirds of the married pedophiles in their sample had children, with an average of two to three children per subject."[46]

· A report by the Department of Justice addressed the devious stratagems of pedophiles, who will go to great lengths to conceal their true desires: "Preferential sex offenders may be 'pillars of the community' and are often described as 'nice guys.' They almost always have a means of access to children (for example, through marriage, neighborhood, or occupation.)"[47]

Thus, the evidence shows that homosexual pedophiles cannot be narrowly defined as individuals who are solely attracted to underage boys. In fact there is considerable overlap between homosexuality and pedophilia.
PEDOPHILIA IN GAY CULTURE The Historical Connection between Pedophilia and the Gay Rights Movement

David Thorstad is a homosexual activist and historian of the gay rights movement.[48] He is a former president of New York's Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), a prototype activist group founded in December 1969. The GAA at its inception opposed age of consent laws, which prohibited adults from having sex with children.[49] Thorstad is also a pedophile and founding member of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

Thorstad argues that there is a natural and undeniable connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. He expresses bitterness that the gay rights movement has, in his view, abandoned pedophilia. Thorstad writes: "Boy-lovers were involved in the gay movement from the beginning, and their presence was tolerated. Gay youth groups encouraged adults to attend their dances. . . . There was a mood of tolerance, even joy at discovering the myriad of lifestyles within the gay and lesbian subculture."[50]

The inaugural issue of the Gay Community News in 1979 published a "Statement to the Gay Liberation Movement on the Issue of Man/Boy Love," which challenged the movement to return to a vision of sexual liberation. It argued that "the ultimate goal of gay liberation is the achievement of sexual freedom for all--not just equal rights for 'lesbian and gay men,' but also freedom of sexual expression for young people and children."

In the early years there was some reluctance to accept pedophilia, primarily among feminist and lesbian activist groups. In March 1979 the Lesbian Feminist Liberation (LFL) accusing "so-called Man/Boy Lovers" of "attempting to legitimize sex between children and adults. . . . Feminists easily recognize this as the latest attempt to make palatable the sexual exploitation of children." The coalition went on record as opposing "the sexual abuse of children by heterosexual or homosexual persons."[51]

Despite this opposition, Thorstad claims that by 1985 homosexual pedophiles had won acceptance within the gay movement. He cites Jim Kepner, then curator of the International Gay and Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles: "A point I've been trying to make is that if we reject the boylovers in our midst today we'd better stop waving the banner of the Ancient Greeks, of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Horatio Alger, and Shakespeare. We'd better stop claiming them as part of our heritage unless we are broadening our concept of what it means to be gay today."[52]

In 1985 NAMBLA was admitted as a member in New York's council of Lesbian and Gay Organizations as well as the International Gay Association--now the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). In the mid-1990's ILGA's association with NAMBLA and other pedophile groups cost the organization it's status as a Non-Governmental Organization in the United Nations.

ILGA's renewed attempt to gain admittance to the UN was rejected again in April 2002 because the organization "did not document that it had purged pedophile groups such as [NAMBLA]." The Washington Times reports that Ishtiag H. Anrabi, Pakistani delegate to the UN Economic and Social Council, expressed concern that ILGA was continuing to be secretive about ties with pedophile groups: "For more than a year, the ILGA has refused to provide documentation or allow review of its membership list to demonstrate that pedophilia groups have been expelled."[53]
Pedophile Themes Abound in Gay Literature

The late "beat" poet Allen Ginsberg illustrates the seamless connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. Many know Ginsberg as an illustrious "out" homosexual poet: fewer are aware that he was also a pedophile.

Biographer Raymond-Jean Frontain refers to Ginsberg's publications in both NAMBLA Bulletin and NAMBLA Journal. He discusses how Ginsberg's biographers failed to discuss his poems that contained pederastic themes:
Although both Shumacher and Barry Miles (Ginsberg's initial biographer) frankly discuss Ginsberg's sexual politics, neither refers to his involvement with the controversial North American Man/Boy Love Association. . . . I reread Collected Poems and Ginsberg's two subsequent collections, surprised by the pattern of references to anal intercourse and to pederasty that emerged.[54]

Ginsberg was one of the first of a growing number of homosexual writers who cater to the fascination with pedophilia in the gay community. Mary Eberstadt, writing in the Weekly Standard, documents how the taboo against sex with children continues to erode--with the impetus coming from homosexual writers.[55]

Revealingly, the examples she provides of pedophilia in current literature come from gay fiction. Eberstadt cites the Village Voice, which states that "Gay fiction is rich with idyllic accounts of 'intergenerational relationships,' as such affairs are respectfully called these days."[56] Other examples of pedophilia-themed gay fiction include:

· In the introduction of the "mainstream" homosexual anthology Penguin Book on International Gay Writing, David Leavitt notes matter-of-factly that "Another 'forbidden' topic from which European writers seem less likely to shrink is the love of older men for young boys." Leavitt praises one book with a pedophilic theme included in the anthology as a "coolly assured narrative [which] compels the reader to imagine the world from a perspective he might ordinarily condemn."[57]

· Several texts included in another anthology, The Gay Canon: Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read, feature scenes of man-boy sex. One such book is praised as "an operatic adventure into the realms of love, personality, ambition and art . . . a pure joy to read." The protagonist is "a pedophile's dream: the mind of a man in the body of a boy."[58] Another novel which includes graphic descriptions of sexual violence against boys is said to "[tear] straight to the heart of one of the greatest sources, community-wide, of 1990's gay angst: What to do with men who love boys?"[59]

· Yet another anthology of homosexual fiction, A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition, published by Yale University Press, includes "a longish chapter on 'Boys and Boyhood' which is a seemingly definitive account of pro-pedophile literary works."[60] The author appears more concerned with the feelings and emotions of the man than with his boy victim. He explores the question of "whether or not you regard [having sex with boys] as a way of retreating from life or, on the contrary, as a way of engaging with it at its most honest and least corrupted level."[61]

· A significant percentage of books that have appeared on the Gay Men's Press fiction bestseller list contain pedophilia themes, including:
Some Boys: described as a "memoir of a lover of boys" that "evokes the author's young friends across four decades."[62]
For a Lost Soldier: the story of a sexual relationship between a soldier and an eleven-year-old boy, set during World War II.[63]
A Good Start, Considering: yet another story about an eleven-year-old boy (!) who suffers sexual abuse but is rescued by a teenager who "offers him love and affection"[64]
Terre Haute: billed as "A poetic novel of sexual awakening in the American Midwest, tracing an adolescent's journey from introspection to perilous desire."
Shiva and Arun: the story of two Indian adolescents who "discover early on the joys of sex."
Teardrops on My Drum: barefoot kids in 1920's Liverpool search for "adventure, love and sex."
Pro-pedophilia Publications

Recent years have seen the appearance of publications that lend a scholarly veneer to the fascination with pedophilia in the gay community. Such publications attempt to make the case for "intergenerational intimacy." The nation's largest gay publisher, Alyson Publications, which distributes Daddy's Roommate and other homosexual books that promote homosexuality to children, publishes books advocating man-boy sex, including:

· Paedophilia: The Radical Case, which contains detailed information on how to engage in sexual relations with young boys.[65]

· The Age Taboo, another defense of pedophiliawhich claims: "Boy-lovers . . . are not child molesters. The child abusers are . . . parents who force their staid morality onto the young people in their custody."[66]
The Journal of Homosexuality and Pedophilia

The Journal of Homosexuality is viewed as the premier "mainstream" English-language publication of the gay movement. One prominent editor is John DeCecco, a psychologist at San Francisco State University who also serves on the editorial board of the Dutch pedophile journal Paidika. It is therefore not surprising to see pedophilia promoted on its pages.

In 1990 the Journal of Homosexuality published a series of essays on pedophilia that were eventually published as Male Inter-Generational Intimacy:Historical, Socio-Psychological, and Legal Perspectives, edited by pedophile Edward Brongersma. None of the essays offered any substantive criticism of pedophilia: most blatantly promoted man-boy love as the natural right of homosexuals.

In 1999 Helmut Graupner, wrote an article on pedophilia in the Journal of Homosexuality, in which he claims: "Man/boy and woman/girl relations without doubt are same-sex relations and they do constitute an aspect of gay and lesbian life." Graupner argues that, as such, consensual sexual relations between adult homosexuals and youths as young as fourteen qualifies as a "gay rights issue."[67]

The fascination with pedophilia continues to be a cause of concern even within the gay community. Lesbian columnist Paula Martinac, writing in the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade, states:
[S]ome gay men still maintain that an adult who has same-sex relations with someone under the legal age of consent is on some level doing the kid a favor by helping to bring him or her 'out.' It's not pedophilia, this thinking goes--pedophilia refers only to little kids. Instead, adult-youth sex is viewed as an important aspect of gay culture, with a history dating back to 'Greek love' of ancient times. This romanticized version of adult-youth sexual relations has been a staple of gay literature and has made appearances, too, in gay-themed films.[68]

Martinac adds that "When some gay men venerate adult-youth sex as affirming while simultaneously declaring 'We're not pedophiles,' they send an inconsistent message to society. . . . The lesbian and gay community will never be successful in fighting the pedophile stereotype until we all stop condoning sex with young people."[69]
VICTIM'S TURNED VICTIMIZERS: THE CONSEQUENCES OF HOMOSEXUAL CHILD ABUSE

The steadfast denial of the disturbing ties with pedophilia within the homosexual movement is no purely academic matter. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the homosexual-pedophile connection is the fact that men who sexually molest boys all too often lead their victims into homosexuality and pedophilia. The evidence indicates that a high percentage of homosexuals and pedophiles were themselves sexually abused as children:

· The Archives of Sexual Behavior reports: "One of the most salient findings of this study is that 46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender."[70]

· A study of 279 homosexual/bisexual men with AIDS and control patients discussed in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported: "More than half of both case and control patients reported a sexual act with a male by age 16 years, approximately 20 percent by age 10 years."[71]

· Noted child sex abuse expert David Finkelhor found that "boys victimized by older men were over four times more likely to be currently engaged in homosexual activity than were non-victims. The finding applied to nearly half the boys who had had such an experience. . . . Further, the adolescents themselves often linked their homosexuality to their sexual victimization experiences."[72]

· A study in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology found:"In the case of childhood sexual experiences prior to the age of fourteen, 40 percent (of the pedophile sample) reported that they had engaged 'very often' in sexual activity with an adult, with 28 percent stating that this type of activity had occurred 'sometimes'"[73]

· A National Institute of Justice report states that "the odds that a childhood sexual abuse victim will be arrested as an adult for any sex crime is 4.7 times higher than for people . . . who experienced no victimization as children."[74]

· A Child Abuse and Neglect study found that 59 percent of male child sex offenders had been "victim of contact sexual abuse as a child."[75]

· The Journal of Child Psychiatry noted that "there is a tendency among boy victims to recapitulate their own victimization, only this time with themselves in the role of perpetrator and someone else the victim."[76]

The circle of abuse is the tragic legacy of the attempts by homosexuals to legitimize having sex with boys. For too many boys it is already too late to protect them from those who took advantage of their need for love and attention. All too many later perpetrate the abuse by themselves engaging in the sexual abuse of boys. Only by exposing the lies, insincere denials, and deceptions--including those wrapped in scholastic garb--of those who prey sexually on children, can we hope to build a wall of protection around the helpless children among us.

END NOTES
1. Dawn Fisher, "Adult Sex Offenders: Who are They? Why and How Do They Do It?" in Tony Morrison, et al., eds., Sexual Offending Against Children (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 11.
2. Kee MacFarlane, et al., Sexual Abuse of Young Children: Evaluation and Treatment (New York: The Guilford Press, 1986), p. 9.
3. John Briere, et al.,eds., The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 52, 53.
4. Kurt Freund, et al., "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 10 (Fall 1984): 198; See also Freund, K, and Watson, R. J., "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Paedophiles among Sex Offenders against Children: an Exploratory Study," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (1992): 34.
5. Bill Watkins and Arnon Bentovim, "The Sexual Abuse of Male Children and Adolescents: A Review of Current Research," Journal of Child Psychiatry 33 (1992); in Byrgen Finkelman, Sexual Abuse (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), p. 300.
6. MacFarlane, p. 9.
7. Kurt Freund, et al., "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 10 (1984): 197. "The proportional prevalence of offenders against male children in this group of 457 offenders against children was 36 percent." See also, Kurt Freund, et al., "Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference," "Approximately one-third of these individuals had victimized boys and two-thirds had victimized girls. This finding is consistent with the proportions reported in two earlier studies," p. 107.
8. Watkins and Bentovim, p. 315.
9. Robert L. Johnson, "Long-term Effects of Sexual Abuse in Boys," Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality (September 1988): 38.
10. "Understanding and Investigating Child Sexual Exploitation," (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 1997), p. 12.
11. Watkins and Bentovim, p. 302.
12. Dan Black, et al., "Demographics of the Gay and Lesbian Population in the United States: Evidence from Available Systematic Data Sources," Demography 37 (May 2000): 141.
13. John O. G. Billy, et al., "The Sexual Behavior of Men in the United States," Family Planning Perspectives 25 (March/April 1993): 58.
14. J. Gordon Muir, "Homosexuals and the 10 percent Fallacy," Wall Street Journal (March 31, 1993).
15. Milton Diamond, "Homosexuality and Bisexuality in Different Populations," Archives of Sexual Behavior 22 (1993):300.
16. Ibid. Significantly, a number of studies that were surveyed, and which skewed the overall percentages of homosexuals upwards, included such vague definers as those having had "any homosexual body contact." In contrast, one study that was limited to self-identifying homosexuals found that less than 2 percent of the male respondents considered their "sexual orientation" to be homosexual, p. 293.
17. Freund, "Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference," p. 107. In this and previous studies, Freund claims that homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to be attracted to children (p. 115). However, Silverthorn, et al., mentions the limitations of studies by Freund and others: "Studies of homosexual male preferences are also limited. . . . The Freund et al.(1973) study was possibly compromised because the homosexual men used in the study were selected to be sexually attracted to adults, but not teenaged, males. The Bailey et al. (1994) study was limited in that it did not present participants with objective stimuli but simply asked participants to report what age of sexual partner they preferred . . . the Jankowiak et al. (1992) study . . . was limited in two ways: the homosexual male participants had a limited age range of 'middle-aged professionals' and the stimuli presented to participants were also of a limited age range ('university to middle-aged')." Silverthorn attempted to correct these deficiencies, and in his study found that homosexuals "preferred younger partners than those who preferred female partners"--including those as young as fifteen. Zebulon A. Silverthorne and Vernon L. Quinsey, "Sexual Partner Age Preferences of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women," Archives of Sexual Behavior 29 (February 2000): 67-76.
18. Ray Blanchard, et al., "Fraternal Birth Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles," Archives of Sexual Behavior 29 (2000): 464.
19. Ibid., p. 471.
20. John M. W. Bradford, et al., "The Heterogeneity/Homogeneity of Pedophilia," Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa 13 (1988): 225. Elsewhere the study notes: "Researchers have variously estimated the incidence of homosexual pedophilia between 19 percent and 33 percent of reported molestations," p. 218.
21. Freund, "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality," p. 197.
22. Michele Elliott, "Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: What Offenders Tell Us," Child Abuse and Neglect 19 (1995): 581.
23. The fact sheet discusses a study by Carole Jenny, et al., which claims that only 2 of 269 child molesters could be identified as gay or lesbian. Carole Jenny, et al., "Are Children at Risk for Sexual Abuse by Homosexuals?" Pediatrics 94 (July 1994): 41-44. However, the Jenny study utilized an atypical research technique: the reported child molesters themselves were not interviewed. Instead, the researchers relied upon the subjective opinions of "informants" who accompanied the child victim to the medical clinic. The qualifications for such "informants" to determine the sexual behavior of the accused molester were not established. However, once it is "determined" beforehand that pedophiles who molest boys cannot be considered gay or homosexual if they have had sexual relations with women, it is a foregone conclusion that few if any of the pedophiles -who often have girlfriends, are married, and have children - will be labeled homosexual. The Jenny study used this narrow profile despite the fact that the study itself found that 22 percent of the perpetrators were of the same sex as the victim. In these cases the molesters clearly engaged in homosexual sexual molestation.
24. "Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation and Child Abuse," Human Rights Campaign (2001):available at: http://hrc.grassroots.com/family/soandchildabusefact/. The fact sheet discusses a study by Carole Jenny, et al., which claims that only 2 of 269 child molesters could be identified as gay or lesbian. Carole Jenny, et al., "Are Children at Risk for Sexual Abuse by Homosexuals?" pp. 41-44. However, the Jenny study utilized an atypical research technique. The reported child molesters themselves were not interviewed; instead, the researchers relied upon the subjective opinions of "informants" who accompanied the child victim to the medical clinic.
25. Note that the well-accepted definition of "child" as someone between infancy and the age of maturation is employed here.
26. Bradford, p.218.
27. "[Pedophiles] can be of either sex or any [sexual] orientation, i.e., homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual." Paedophilia:Some Questions and Answers (London: Paedophilic Informational Exchange, 1978); quoted in Seth L. Goldstein, "Investigating Child Sexual Exploitation:Law Enforcement's Role," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 53 (January 1984): 23.
28. W. L. Marshall, et al., "Sexual Offenders against Male Children: Sexual Preferences," Behavior Research and Therapy 26 (March 1988): 390.
29. Freund, "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality," p.194.
30. Ibid., p. 197.
31. Bradford, et al., p. 217.
32. Ibid., pp. 218, 219.
33. Marshall, p. 390.
34. James Bickley and Anthony R. Beech, "Classifying Child Abusers: Its Relevance to Theory and Clinical Practice," International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 45 (2001): 56.
35. Krisin A. Danni, et al., "An Analysis of Predicators of Child Sex Offender Types Using Presentence Investigation Reports," International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 44 (2000): 491.
36. Zebulon A. Silverthorne and Vernon L. Quinsey, "Sexual Partner Age Preferences of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women," p.73.
37. Karla Jay and Allen Young, The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out about Sexual Experiences and Lifestyles (New York: Summit Books, 1979), p. 275
38. Marshall, "Sexual Offenders against Male Children: Sexual Preferences," p. 383.
39. W. L. Marshall, et al., "Early Onset and Deviant Sexuality in Child Molesters," Journal of Interpersonal Violence 6 (1991): 323-336.
40. W. D. Erickson, "Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters," Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83.
41. John F. Harvey, O.S.F.S., The Homosexual Person: New Thinking in Pastoral Care (San Francisco: Ignatius Press:1987): 221
42. Ibid., p. 219.
43. Elliott, p. 581.
44. Marshall, "Sexual Offenders against Male Children: Sexual Preferences," p. 383.
45. Bradford, p. 219.
46. Bradford, p. 224.
47. "Understanding and Investigating Child Sexual Exploitation," p. 5.
48. Thorstad is co‑author, with John Lauritsen, of The early homosexual rights movement (1864‑1935) (New York: Times Change Press, 1974).
49. David Thorstad, "May/Boy Love and the American Gay Movement" Journal of Homosexuality 20 (1990): 252.
50. Ibid., p. 253.
51. Ibid., p. 258.
52. Ibid., p. 266.
53. George Archibald, "U.N. Group Keeps Ban on Gay Lobby," Washington Times (May 1, 2002).
54. Raymond-Jean Frontain, "The Works of Allen Ginsberg," Journal of Homosexuality 34 (1997): 109.
55. Mary Eberstadt, "'Pedophilia Chic' Reconsidered" The Weekly Standard 6 (January 8, 2001).
56. Ibid., p. 21.
57. Ibid., p. 22.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., p. 23.
61. Ibid. Emphasis added by Eberstadt.
62. Ibid., p. 23.
63. Ibid.
64. From the Gay Men's Press website: www.gmppubs.co.uk/cgi-bin/web_store/web_store.cgi
65. Tom O'Carroll, Paedophilia: The Radical Case (Boston:Alyson Publications, 1982).
66. Daniel Tsang, editor, The Age Taboo: Gay Male Sexuality, Power, and Consent (Boston: Alyson Publications ; London : Gay Men's Press, 1981), p. 144.
67. Helmut Graupner, "Love Versus Abuse: Crossgenerational Sexual Relations of Minors: A Gay Rights Issue?" Journal of Homosexuality 37 (1999): 23, 26.
68. Paula Martinac, "Mixed Messages on Pedophilia Need to be Clarified, Unified," Washington Blade (March 15, 2002).
69. Ibid.
70. Marie, E. Tomeo, et al., "Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescence Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons," Archives of Sexual Behavior 30 (2001): 539.
71. Harry W. Haverkos, et al., "The Initiation of Male Homosexual Behavior," The Journal of the American Medical Association 262 (July 28, 1989): 501.
72. Watkins and Bentovim, p. 316.
73. Gary A. Sawle, Jon Kear-Colwell, "Adult Attachment Style and Pedophilia: A Developmental Perspective," International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 45 (February 2001):6.
74. Cathy Spatz Widom, "Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse - Later Criminal Consequences," Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse Series:NIJ Research in Brief, (March 1995): 6.
75. Elliott, p. 582.
76. Watkins, p. 319. Watkins mentions several studies confirming that between 19 percent and 61 percent of male sex abusers had previously been sexually abused themselves.