The Rev. David Holloway, the senior minister of Jesmond Parish, believes the Church of England’s Clergy Discipline Measure will not apply in this case. Ecclesiastical lawyers are studying the case, and it is not yet clear what their response will be.

The Rt. Rev. Rod Thomas, appointed as Bishop of Maidstone to work with conservative evangelicals, is reserving his opinion.

The action in Jesmond caught GAFCON by surprise. Except for a conversation with GAFCON’s general secretary, the Most Rev. Peter Jensen, Jesmond’s statement makes plain there was no consultation with GAFCON’s primates. A week earlier, GAFCON’s primates stated their intention to send a missionary bishop to the United Kingdom amid conservative concerns about the state of the Church of England.

Archbishop Jensen confirmed it was entirely independent of GAFCON. “But it does show, I think, that the situation in England is becoming very difficult for those who hold the traditional and biblical view.”

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Friends and acquaintances of Jon Meis say they’re not surprised the 22-year-old electrical-engineering student acted bravely to halt Thursday’s shooting at Seattle Pacific University (SPU) ”” or that a day later he was shunning the media spotlight and asking for prayers for the victims.

When the gunman paused to reload his shotgun in Otto Miller Hall, Meis, who had been working as a building monitor in the lobby, fired pepper spray in the man’s face and tackled him. Others moved in to help pin down the shooter until police arrived.

“Any of us would have expected him to act the way he did. He was the right guy to be working there,” said Ryan Salgado, who has been roommates with Meis for four years, first in a dorm and later in a town house near campus.

Meis carried pepper spray out of habit. “He is very prepared, thank God,” said Dan Keimig, another friend and former roommate.

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Payson’s Church of the Holy Nativity will have a place in history this weekend as it becomes the first Anglican church in Arizona and the third in the Southwest to return to the Catholic Church through the changes authorized by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2009.

The congregation will be received and confirmed into the Catholic church and Holy Nativity’s pastor, Father Lowell Andrews will be ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood under the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in services at 2 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 16. Andrews is also the first Anglican Catholic pastor in Arizona to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

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With a large gathering of members and friends of the Anglican Church of St. George the Martyr, the Rev. Paul A. Rivard was installed this past weekend as the church’s new Rector, the church announced.

The Most Rev. Walter H. Grundorf, Presiding Bishop, Anglican Province of America, presided. The Rev. William Martin, of Mills River, NC, and the Rev. Peter Geromel (Diocese of the Holy Cross), in Landrum, SC, assisted during the service. Other APA clergy as well as friends and family of Rivard were also in attendance.

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It’s been five years in the making, and this morning the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando, Florida will become Catholic.

At a Mass of Reception at 10:15 a.m. Sunday, September 16, the Cathedral of the Incarnation, which was formerly associated with the Anglican Church of America, will become the Parish of Incarnation””joining about twenty other former Anglican or Episcopal congregations to be accepted in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the personal ordinariate established as a home for Anglican converts to Catholicism in the United States and Canada.

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Earlier this month, the Most Rev. Brian Marsh, presiding bishop of the Anglican Church in America, blessed the Bible at a Sunday ceremony that included the Rev. Art Bennett, vicar of Christ Church in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Deacon David Moody of the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in Charlestown and Wendy Baker, museum director at the Fort at No. 4.

Baker said Tuesday that the Bible and other prayer books enhance the museum, since religion played a vital role in the daily lives of people in the 18th century.

“It adds another dimension to the fort. It adds more depth. We think of religion as being very separate from people’s lives, but in the 18th century, we know that it had control of a lot of activity. It was a different way of looking at the world,” Baker said. “It wasn’t a question of being able to separate your life from your religion or your spirituality, as we would now say.”

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The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA)’s Society for Mission and Apostolic Works has lost one of its two ecclesial sponsors. In a 22 August 2012 statement given to Anglican Ink, the Church of Uganda said the canonical cover offered by one of its bishops to clergy who wish to affiliate with the society under the leadership of Bishop Chuck Murphy had been withdrawn.

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Creighton Jones first felt the call to enter the priesthood in the 1980s, but he didn’t think the time was right.

Today, 10 years after receiving his seminary training, the Myrtle Beach priest is overseeing a worldwide congregation 1.5 million members strong.

On Saturday, he was the Rev. Canon Creighton Jones of Myrtle Beach’s Good Shepherd Anglican Church. Following a two-plus hour consecration ceremony ”“ attended by bishops from Ghana and India as well as 80 parishioners ”“ he was rechristened as the presiding bishop of the Orthodox Anglican Church in the U.S., and the archbishop of the worldwide Orthodox Anglican Communion.

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From here:

“There’s lots of work for all of us,”… [Martyn Minns] said. “This is not just one province sticking its nose in. It’s the Global South collectively saying ‘We’ve got to do something’ because of the crisis in the U.S. church.”

But a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, James Naughton, said the proliferation of “offshore” churches “makes it clear how difficult it is going to be for the conservatives to unite, because each of these primates wants a piece of the action, and none is willing to subjugate himself to another.”

Rwanda’s Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini and the archbishop of Southeast Asia, Moses Tay, were the first to establish a missionary branch in the United States. In 2000, they jointly consecrated two former Episcopal priests as bishops and formed the Anglican Mission in the Americas, or AMIA. It has grown at the rate of one church every three weeks and now numbers about 120 congregations, with five bishops.

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The Archbishop of Kenya has withdrawn from the Anglican Mission in America’s (AMiA) College of Consultors. Sources within the AMiA and in the Anglican Church of Kenya tell Anglican Ink Archbishop Eliud Wabukala has written to Bishop Chuck Murphy withdrawing his patronage from the organization.

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While in London, we had the opportunity to talk at length together about the continuing turbulence from the separation of the Anglican Mission in America from its founding church, the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The House of Bishops of Rwanda has recently declared the establishment of a Missionary District in North America (PEARUSA) as its only continuing work on this continent and has offered a deadline of August 31 for clergy and churches to determine their future jurisdiction. There are three options available: remain with Rwanda through PEARUSA, transfer to another Anglican jurisdiction through letters dimissory, or follow the Anglican Mission into its new venture. Provision and procedure for each of these options is available or is being developed as rapidly as possible. (These materials will be available through the www.pearusa.org website as they are developed.)

At the same time, there has been a great deal of confusion recently around the issue of the resigned bishops of the AMiA, their relationship with Rwanda, and their possible relationship with ACNA. We write this communiqué together primarily to address that confusion.

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In 2004 a man serving on our vestry decided to leave his wife after only two years of marriage. There was no adultery, no abandonment, nothing. He’d just grown tired of her and wanted to find someone new. He and I were close. I trusted him. He’d been instrumental in saving my job. When liberal members of Good Shepherd, upset over the stance I had taken with regard to Gene Robinson, called a parish meeting at another local Episcopal Church trying to gather support to have me ousted, this man rallied my supporters and showed up at the meeting with the majority of the congregation behind him.

So when he came seeking my blessing for his divorce he may have expected me, for the sake of our friendship and his past loyalty, to give it. Instead I told him that he needed to step off of the vestry. I told him that in order to remain a member in good standing he’d need to halt his divorce proceedings, go to a Christian marriage counselor, and commit to reconciliation.

He refused.

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A Special Message from the Chairman, Chuck Murphy:

At the close of this year’s Winter Conference, we issued a Communiqué expressing the mind of the gathering. One of the key components and goals of that Communiqué, as well as subsequent communications from our Council of Bishops, was to “diligently seek appropriate jurisdictional connections” with an authentic and orthodox Anglican Communion province. As we continue to celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection during this Easter season, it is a particular joy to report the good news that our goal has now been realized. This week, I received an official letter from Archbishop Henri Isingoma of the Anglican Church of the Congo, receiving me as a Bishop of the House of Bishops in his Province and offering us a new canonical residence. In response to a recent letter from Archbishop Rwaje asking our bishops to translate to another Anglican jurisdiction by the end of this month, I had earlier requested that he send my letters dimissory to the Province of the Congo.

This transfer follows a process of relational reconciliation with Rwanda facilitated by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala. These conversations culminated in our meeting in Johannesburg and the Communiqué in which Archbishop Rwaje agreed to release theAM to develop other jurisdictional relationships. Under our accord with the Province of the Congo, we are now secure and validly attached to the global Anglican Communion. Rooted in the East African Revival, the Province of the Congo [formerly Zaire] was originally joined together as one larger province, which also included Rwanda and Burundi. In 1992, all three were subsequently established as separate provinces. The Anglican Mission’s connection with the Congo began at Winter Conference 2012 when Bishop William Bahemuka Mugenyi generously made provision for scheduled ordinations to go forward.

We are very grateful to Archbishop Henri for his warm welcome to the Province. As we continue to transition toward a Mission Society with oversight provided by a College of Consultors, we remain committed to the multi-jurisdictional model that launched the Anglican Mission in Singapore (the Provinces of Southeast Asia and Rwanda). Toward that end, conversations with other jurisdictions including the Anglican Church in North America will continue.

Now that a new canonical residence provides for our bishops and clergy to transfer from Rwanda to the Congo, I have been asked to facilitate the transition and therefore, requests for transfers should be sent to the Mission Center.

We look forward with great anticipation to the multi-layered process of developing a Mission Society designed to encase our values and facilitate our desire to be a mission, nothing more and nothing less. While we continue our consistent focus on planting churches in North America, our process will include careful consideration of our present structures including the roles of bishops, the Mission Center and its staff, and our Networks as we prepare to develop the constitution and statutes that will ultimately order our common life. We are scheduling several meetings in which we will discuss and seek input from clergy and leaders throughout the Mission to assist us in designing and vetting the shape and specific details of our proposed Mission Society. We expect to complete these conversations by mid-October.

The Council of Bishops and our leadership team are united in a vision to further develop and carry forth an Apostolic/missionary (sodality) call to reach those outside the faith in effective, creative and entrepreneurial ways. This journey is well underway, and we invite and encourage you to celebrate and press on with us.

In Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Charles Murphy is Chairman, AMIA

In 2010, AMiA’s leadership chose to distance themselves from the newly started ACNA. Where AMiA was once an organization with “dual citizenship” within the ACNA as well as Rwanda, it pulled out of the ACNA, changing its status to “mission partner.” Some inside the AMiA were disappointed by this distancing and wanted the opportunity to officially reconnect with the ACNA; now the establishment of PEARUSA by the Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesphore Rwaje, has rekindled hopes for those who want to be structurally within the ACNA.

The Rev. Clark Lowenfield, Rector of Hope Pointe Anglican Church near Houston, Texas is among those formerly in AMiA who are now in PEARUSA and would like to join the ACNA. Lowenfield says there are a number of parishes in his region alone that desire as much, however “there is a very high value on doing things decently and in order” within the group. That’s good news for a mission organization that has been through such turmoil in recent months and is made up of churches that may be headed in different directions.

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(Please note two things. First, I realize this article is dated but it was only yesterday working on something that I realized it had not yet been posted and it remains relevant. Second, make sure to note that it should not be confused with the earlier article on the AMIA by this same writer which was posted on the blog there.. Blog readers should make sure to digest both pieces–KSH.)

Bishop Terrell Glen, a former AMIA leader who remains part of the Church of Rwanda, said [Chuck] Murphy and other American bishops did the wrong thing by bolting. They had taken a vow of obedience to their bishop, he said, and broke it by quitting.

“I don’t believe the archbishop was requiring anything of anyone that we could not submit to,” he said.

For years, leaders of the Anglican Mission and other breakaway Episcopal groups have tried to get the Anglican Communion to recognize them as a legitimate alternative to the Episcopal Church. This latest split shows how difficult that will be, said Jim Naughton, editor of Episcopalcafe.com and a former spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.

“We don’t know how much staying power they have,” said Naughton.

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AMiA was founded in 2000. Initially the relationship between the American congregations that joined the Rwanda Province went well due to the lax control the Rwandan Church exercised over AMiA congregations. In return for being part of the Rwandan Church, AMiA freely gave 10 percent of its revenue to the province.

Problems began after Emmanuel Kolini, the archbishop of Rwanda, retired in 2010. His successor, Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje, desired more oversight of AMiA, which led to tensions between Rwaje and American Bishop Charles Murphy, a missionary bishop ordained to head AMiA.

This led to the decision by some bishops including Murphy to resign in December of last year and leave the AMiA.

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I think it is safe to say that until about 30 – 40 years ago very few people would know what an Anglican was….[but today that is no longer the case]….

Via the magic of Facebook, commentator Daniel Stoddart directed my attention to a DC-area newspaper, the Vienna Connection, which has a nice story about a new church. The article entitled “Vienna Resident ”˜Plants’ a Church” chronicles its story.

The Rev. Johnny Kurcina has formed a congregation that meets on Sunday mornings at the Louise Archer Elementary School cafeteria. Since its start in November, the church appears to be doing well and the write up presents an attractive picture of a young minister with a bright future ahead.

The word “Anglican” is found in the sub-title….

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Claims the Anglican Mission in America has been given a home in the Anglican Church of the Congo are false, the Primate of the Congolese church, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of Kinshasa tells Anglican Ink.

The Anglican Church of the Congo plans to endorse the Anglican Covenant at its forthcoming general assembly, the archbishop said, and would not violate the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group and initiate a cross border intervention in the jurisdiction of another Anglican province.

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For the second time in a decade, the Rev. Thomas McKenzie has found himself in an ugly church fight.

Back in 2004, it was over sexuality and salvation in the Episcopal Church.

Now it’s over power and money, the spat between leaders of the Anglican Mission in the Americas ”” made up mostly of former Episcopalians like McKenzie ”” and the overseas Anglican group that adopted them.

“It’s sinful, it’s ugly, it’s wrong,” said McKenzie, pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Nashville and a former Episcopal priest. “And it doesn’t bring honor to the name of Christ.”

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Update: Please note–this link no longer works for me but I found it over here.

The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has come under sharp criticism from the Church of Rwanda over its plans to pull away from the oversight of the African church.

On 31 Oct 2011 Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje directed AMiA Bishop Charles “Chuck” Murphy to suspend work on a proposal that would change its oversight from a “personal prelature” under the Rwandan primate to a missionary society overseen by an independent “college of consultors”.
Founded by Evangelicals in response to what it saw as the abandonment of the classical Anglicans in the United States, Bishop Murphy and Bishop John Rodgers were consecrated on 29 January 2000 at St Andrews Cathedral in Singapore by the Archbishop of Southeast Asia and Rwandan Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini. It has grown rapidly under the leadership of Bishop Murphy, but has begun to witness internal tensions as well as stresses in its relationship with Rwanda.

Citing personal disagreements with Bishop Murphy, the Rt. Rev. Terrell Glenn, an assistant bishop, last week announced his resignation. Questions have also been raised over the transparency of the AMiA’s finances and leadership structure. Criticisms have also been raised over new canons prepared by a former Roman Catholic clergyman now serving in the AMiA that have incorporated a Roman Catholic ecclesiology and sacramental theology.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

It was only in July 2006, almost three years after the Episcopal Church’s consecration of a pseudogamously partnered man as Bishop of New Hampshire that Walter, Cardinal Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), the Vatican’s “ecumenical office,” delivered an urgent address to the House of Bishops of the Church of England imploring them to proceed no further with measures allowing for the appointment of woman bishops, as such a measure would render impossible the realization of previous Anglican and Catholic ecumenical aspirations. (I shall return to this episode further on in this presentation.) Cardinal Kasper had a reputation, perhaps not undeserved, for being interested primarily in cultivating ecumenical relations with representatives of the historic Protestant churches, such as those that made up the Lutheran World Federation or the Anglican Communion, to give two examples, and rather less with conservative or dissident groups stemming from those traditions, and reacting to their perceived liberalism, such as the Lutheran Church ”“ Missouri Synod, or the various “jurisdictions” that make up “Continuing Anglicanism,” and this address to the Church of England’s bishops was almost the “last hurrah” of this type of Catholic ecumenism. Almost ”” for there was to be a last farewell to it at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

All this said, the remainder of my presentation shall tell “three stories:” the story of the Traditional Anglican Communion’s approaches to Rome; the story of England’s Forward-in-Faith organization and its dealings, or the dealings of some of its member bishops and clergy, with Rome; and, finally, and perhaps most significantly, the almost completely unpublicized story of the secret discussions between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome and some English Anglican bishops in 2008 and 2009.

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TAC Bishop Harry Entwistle – one of four TAC Bishops in Australia and the Torres Strait Islands who will be ordained as Catholic priests, likely just before the Ordinariate is officially established, told The Record the festival is a public statement that “this is no longer just a theory, it’s really happening”. “It’s an opportunity to gather those who are more than just casually interested,” he said of the festival, which is for Catholics and Anglicans who, like the TAC, have long been disillusioned with the Anglican Church’s liberalisation with female clergy, among other things.

Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, Delegate for the Holy See for the Australian Ordinariate, will address the festival, as will Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the TAC which claims a global membership of 400,000.

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And why should you be interested in Addison Hart, you might say.

Second, Addison Hart is one of my seminary classmates from Trinity School for Ministry and served as a distinguished member of the Episcopal diocese of South Carolina in years past. Did I say he is married with children? Hmmmm–KSH.

What I have grown weary of seeing is Anglican clergy who seem to go out of their way to convert people to Roman Catholicism, who buy the lie that the Anglican heritage is somehow flawed, and that our Orders are just barely valid in spite of (when in truth, they are really fully valid because of) what the English reformers believed. After buying all the false history, and with barely any grasp of sound learning, such clergy give people no confidence in the heritage of the very church they are charged to serve with honest leadership. How could they expect to grow congregations if they don’t believe in their own church?

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About 1000 Australians are expected to join a new Anglican wing of the Catholic Church by next June, the leader of the main group of dissident Anglicans said yesterday.

A committee was set up last week to oversee the process. For the first time, Anglicans planning to switch to Rome believe they will be able to take their church properties too, which has been a stumbling block.

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By entering into full communion, the parish will enjoy sacramental unity with the Roman Catholic Church but will retain its Anglican identity and liturgy.

The congregation of 28 parishioners is a member of the Anglican Church in America, which is part of the Traditional Anglican Communion and not recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is also not part of the Episcopal Church, the American branch ofthe Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Church in America has about 100 parishes across the country but only one in Arkansas. Individual parishes can make the decision to ally themselves with the Roman Catholic Church if they wish, Hall said.

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The UK wing of the Traditional Anglican Communion ”“ a group of rebel traditionalists who have left official Anglicanism ”“ has voted to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a Personal Ordinariate. The TAC has only a few small communities in Britain, but the Pope will be pleased by this development.

Hat-tip to Fr Tim Finigan, who says on his blog: “I hear a lot of sceptical comments about the Holy Father’s offer of Personal Ordinariates, with the conventional wisdom being that it will not really attract many people. So it is good to hear news of twenty or so parish communities that will be interested. The TAC asked for the provision in the first place so it is to be expected that they would be first off the mark; but I think that there may well be plenty more to follow in due course.”

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Members of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) around the world and other conservative believers have welcomed Pope Benedict XVI’s overture to Anglicans enabling them to become Catholics “en masse”.

The primate of the TAC, which claims 400,000 members worldwide and is not part of the Anglican Communion, said Pope Benedict’s response “more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago”. Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth expressed gratitude to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for not standing in the TAC’s way.

A US group affiliated to the TAC is the Anglican Church in America (ACA), which claims 5,200 members. In a statement its House of Bishops said they welcomed the Pope’s announcement “with deep joy”. ACA Bishop Louis Campese told The Tablet the ACA bishops planned to hold a special synod to consider the proposal. Bishop Peter Wilkinson who heads the Canadian TAC organisation, the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, said they shared Archbishop Hepworth’s excitement. He said the next moves would be determined after full details of the Apostolic Constitution were released.

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