Religious denominations have long provided retired clergy and staff with secure pension payments””more secure, in some cases, than corporate retirement plans.
But some recent bumps have drawn attention to the vulnerabilities of so-called “church plans,” which are exempt from federal regulations aimed at safeguarding retirement funds for private-sector retirees.

As cash-strapped states and private companies revamp, freeze or end their pension programs altogether, participants in church plans are now realizing how church plans can be riskier than they appear, observers say.

“As a group, employees in so-called church plans are far more at risk than other private sector employees,” said Karen Ferguson, director of the Pension Rights Center, a Washington-based watchdog group.

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A luxury item I brought with me was my prayer book. I’ve just said my prayers in a cafe with my cup of tea. The reading was relevant, to say the least, ”˜Now is the time for you to wake from your sleep…’

I now have the whole day to try and waste to get through. It’s cold and pretty miserable. People are going about their business and I’m trying to eke out my cup of tea for as long as I can. It reminds me how close you are to the edge when you have nothing or very little. The cafe waitress just dropped the saucer…crash!

We tend to be consumers of things and have our identities made by what we own rather than by who we are. We no longer understand ourselves through relationships with other people but by what we possess.

I wonder how we understood who we were in times gone by. We were part of a tribe or a village and had fixed relationships. Then the industrial revolution turned us into citizens of the nation state with rights and responsibilities. Now we live in a society that defines us as consumers – what we have rather than what our intrinsic value is.

Read it and the other three posts about his experence.

The 17 masked men pulled two teenage boys off the Rev. David Beaumont’s truck in northern Mexico, forced them to the ground, and put guns against their heads as their mother screamed to the priest that her sons were about to be killed.

Beaumont, who was born in Hempstead and grew up in Commack, has spent the last 20 years as a Franciscan missionary in one of the most dangerous and violent areas of the world. On this day last April, he had to make a split-second decision.

“I was saying to myself, ‘Well, now either I’m really going to be a missionary and be prepared to give my life for the people, or run and hide,’ ” Beaumont recalled in a telephone interview. “I felt it was a pivotal moment in my life. When I walked out to them [the masked men], I realized that the last thing I might see would be the bullets coming at me.”

The men did not fire at the American priest in his tattered brown friar’s habit, and he was able to get the boys back in the truck and leave with their mother. But for the next several days they were all so shaken they lost their appetites and could not eat.

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From here:

From officiating at a wedding ceremony to eulogizing at a funeral, it’s clear that the job of a clergy member is complex but crucial. Whether you’re a priest, minister, vicar, rabbi, or bishop, it’s typically your job to provide religious and spiritual guidance to members of your congregation. While you will most likely rely on the authority of a particular religious text””the Bible, the Koran, or the Torah, for example””you will encounter challenging spiritual questions and earthly events that require your own interpretation of those texts and rely on your own knowledge, understanding, and faith experiences. Much of your work can be administrative””managing the day-to-day operations and staff of a religious center or place of worship””and very time consuming. It can also be highly social, whether you’re visiting congregation members in the hospital, attending a community event, or counseling a couple on the brink of divorce. It will be your responsibility to grow your congregation, find reliable lay leaders to run workshops or handle finances, and even oversee the repair of old lighting fixtures and damaged organ pipes. Keep in mind, too, that not all clerics have congregations, but may serve in other capacities….

There would seem to be no shortage of clergy in this country. There were about 670,000 jobs held by clergy in 2008, and the Labor Department expects that number to climb by 13 percent over the next decade or so. Note that opportunities are often the most numerous in smaller congregations, although pay tends to be lower.

Read the rest and check out the whole list at the link.

During a recent visitation at Trinity, Houston, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle confronted the vestry for continued attempts by some to undermine the rector’s authority. The congregation worked with a mediator during the spring and summer to address dissention between the rector, staff and parishioners.

The bishop assured the rector, the Rev. Hannah Atkins, of his support noting her commitment to follow recommendations of the mediator, along with numerous lay leaders who were “setting about the corrective measures called for.” Bishop Doyle said however, he was “saddened” by the continued destructive behavior of some and promised to remove current or future vestry members unwilling to work with the rector in good faith.

Read it all and please note there are two accompanying documents that also should be considered.

Nearly 60 years ago, a young boy from Salt Lake City moved to the mirage-inducing heat of southern Florida streets.

He learned much from segregated fountains and two influential women in Miami, and now the Rev. Dan Lediard has arrived in Hermiston and become the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Lediard, a former insurance salesman who was ordained four years ago, said his upbringing in the Florida city ”” especially coming from the mostly singular skin shades of Utah ”” quickly made him notice the way people of color were treated.

“It didn’t make any sense,” Lediard said, adding that he was grateful for influences from level-headed folks in his home….

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Even before he was officially installed as the Roman Catholic bishop of Cleveland in 2006, Richard G. Lennon was already talking about the need to close churches.

“As painful as a funeral is, it’s there that you commend your loved one to God,” Lennon told reporters just weeks before his installation.

Those words, coming from an auxiliary bishop who had just closed scores of churches in Boston, sounded a death knell for dozens more in Northeast Ohio””and unleashed a small but shrill backlash across Lennon’s new flock.

The extensive downsizing is essentially over, although some of the closings remain under appeal with the Vatican. In the end, 50 parishes were closed. Vacant churches are up for sale, merged parishes are moving forward.

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In a recent article in Christianity Today, a pastor is quoted as saying, “A funeral is like a North Star in the sky, by which a navigator knows where his ship is and how to adjust its direction and get to the destination. At a funeral, you get these coordinates to position yourself in life.” I wholeheartedly agree.

We live in a culture that has forgotten the concept of the brevity of life. Many of us can go for months and even years without attending a funeral and being faced with ultimate issues. But the church is the community of the resurrected Christ- therefore; we say loudly that while death is a reality for all people, it does not triumph because Christ has overcome the grave. Therefore, the understanding of eternity in Christ should teach us how to live well and how to die well.

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Frank Colquhoun was a much respected evangelical priest and popular author in the Church of England. He wrote or edited 26 books of prayers as well as guides to preaching, hymns, the gospels and moral problems. He was also for a time editor of The Churchman and editorial secretary of the World’s Evangelical Alliance.

His patient, gentle, conciliatory character gave him hundreds of friends in his south country and London parishes and also during his work as a cathedral canon. For six years, from 1966 to 1972, he was Principal of the Southwark Ordination Course, that radical experiment pioneered by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood and Bishop John Robinson.

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About 50 Church of England priests opposed to the consecration of women as bishops are expected to be in the first wave of Anglicans to take up an offer by Pope Benedict and convert to Rome. The traditionalist priests will be joined by five bishops and 30 groups of parishioners, in a structure called an ordinariate, or a Church subdivision, in the new year.

About 300 priests switched in the early 1900s when women were ordained as priests. Then they did not have the comfort of moving over in groups, and nearly 70 returned to the Anglican fold.

Here, one priest explains why he stayed, while another describes why he returned.

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From Gen Ys to grannies, the Anglican Church in Tasmania is attracting people from all walks of life keen to take on ministries.

Seven new church leaders were ordained yesterday by Anglican Bishop of Tasmania John Harrower during a special service at St David’s Cathedral in Hobart….

Bishop Harrower said there had been a steady stream of new Anglican Church leaders ordained over recent years.

“We are blessed with men and women of wide experience and different gifts, younger and older, who are taking up the challenge of serving their church and local community in these new roles….

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Election to the General Synod by his fellow deans in 1995 took him into a prominent role as an uncompromising upholder of the Church’s liberal tradition. He spoke frequently in the debates, but his abrasive style sometimes alienated rather than attracted support. This was not a problem for the media, which made much use of him.

From 2006 Slee was a member of the Crown Nominations Committee, where he fought ”“ without much success ”“ to inhibit Evangelical influence over the appointment of diocesan bishops. When the Evangelical Bishop Nazir-Ali of Rochester refused to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference, Slee accused him of trying to form a rival Church and questioned whether he should remain an Anglican bishop.

A proposal that a formal Anglican Covenant should be entered into by the many provinces of the Anglican Communion in order to safeguard the Church’s essential unity at a time of sharp disagreements about such matters as biblical interpretation, women clergy and homosexuality, also earned his strong disapproval. He believed that this would restrict freedom, and said that centralised Church government was something the English Reformation had abolished.

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Facebook can lead married people astray, says the head of the Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune, N.J.

So, in his Sunday sermon, the Rev. Cedric A. Miller will announce that married church leaders have to log out for good, or get kicked out.

This thinking runs counter to churches that are embracing social media to reach their flocks.

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Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster, the bishops’ liaison officer for the ordinariate and the highest-ranking former Anglican priest in England and Wales, said small groups of Anglican laity and their pastors had been preparing for reception into the church and the ordinariate since late September.

“The bishops have warmly and generously welcomed the Holy Father’s initiative toward those Anglicans who are seeking full and ecclesial communion with the Catholic Church,” he told the news conference.

“We have placed it all in the context of our overall ecumenical journey – which is exactly where the Holy Father has placed it – which seeks full communion in faith and fullness of unity for which Jesus Christ himself prayed,” he said.

“It has become very clear that there are clergy and groups of people who wish to make use of this journey into the Catholic Church through the ordinariate structure,” said Bishop Hopes, who was received into the Catholic Church in 1994.

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The five pages of guidelines advise clergy on how to plan an act of worship, including offering those in “stable committed same-gender relationships” the option of a eu­charist. The guidelines specify that there should be no exchange of consents, or signing of a register, and that no prayers of nuptial blessing from any marriage liturgy used any­where in the Anglican Com­munion should be said over the couple.

The Archbishop of Toronto, the Most Revd Colin Johnson, said that he expects that between five and ten parishes will wish to move towards using the guidelines for same-sex blessings. Consensus will need to have been reached in the parishes before permission to carry out bless­ings will be granted.

The Archbishop said: “Not all will welcome this development: some because it goes too far, some because it is not nearly enough. You will note that there are strong affirmations in these guidelines assuring a con­tinued and honoured place in all aspects of diocesan life for those who do not agree with this res­ponse.”

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Dr Williams acknowledged that traditionalists who cannot accept Church of England plans to ordain women bishops were in “considerable confusion and distress”.

But the Pope’s offer to accommodate disaffected Anglicans would leave the Church with “practical challenges” as vicars resign and churches lose worshippers, he said.

Dr Williams’s comments came in his first media interview since The Daily Telegraph disclosed that five Anglican bishops were to join a new section of the Roman Catholic Church established by Pope Benedict XVI.

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In the Vatican’s dealings with the Anglicans, the detail of how Bishops, priest and congregations should be received into unity with the Catholic Church was properly a matter for the Catholic Church alone. The establishment of a secretariate to reflect on such questions as the criteria for deciding whether people approved for ministry in one church should be accepted into Catholic ministry, and how the new group should relate institutionally to other groups within the Catholic Church, was an internal Catholic decision.

But respect would seem to demand that public announcement of special provisions for Anglican congregations and clergy were preceded by consultation and proper communication. It is clear from Archbishop Rowan Williams’ response that this was not done satisfactorily. That the failure represented an older view of Catholic exceptionalism is suggested by the fact that the documents grounding the Vatican initiative maximised Catholic uniqueness.

Respect also normally demands reciprocity. This is germane in deciding whether congregations and other groups that move from one church to another should retain the use and ownership of their churches and other property. Under this principle, Catholic groups which decided to associate with the Anglican church would have the same rights to property as Anglican groups who wished to become Catholic.

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The Rev. Robert Clements, the newest rector of Christ Church in Roxbury, is a real holy roller. Better yet, he’s a real holy rocker.

The pastor is a sincerely devout man, one who serves as the chaplain at Rumsey Hall School, and for his parish is the kind of guiding figure that will readily spend his Sundays, after church of course, visiting hospitals and rehabilitation centers. As is his calling, Dr. Clements is a caring minister who thoughtfully tends to his and other flocks, more than happy to raise money for earthquake-ravaged Haiti or any other worthy cause.

Yet there is another side to the 25-year Episcopal priest, a seemingly clean-cut and well-spoken husband and father of one adult son. The rector, who has been in Roxbury for a little more than a year, harbors a defiant quality with a slew of hobbies that don’t match the conventional standards of the cloth, hobbies more applicable to standards of a rebellious teenager.

It’s a streak of youthful vigor, his love of rock music and the bass guitar. And he’s parlayed his passion into a positive force for those in need, people like the Nashville musicians whose instruments and livelihoods this year were devastated by flooding waters.

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Richard lived his life with unbridled passion in all things. The joy of the Lord Jesus was his strength. Characterized by boundless energy and a teachable spirit, he taught himself to do just about everything from carpentry to oil painting but he relied on “my coach, the Holy Spirit” for his inspiration and direction. An untold number of people were touched by Richard’s life, fulfilling what he wrote when asked why he wanted to go to seminary, “I love God and I love people and I just want to bring them together.” Dority served as a priest in the Episcopal Church from 1958-1987 in Summerton, Pinewood, Manning, Columbia, Darlington, St. James on James Island and St. John’s (Oakland) in Charleston. He founded James Island Christian Church to emphasize biblical principles without denominational traditions and to yield to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in our day.

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On the eve of the consistory to create 24 new cardinals, the princes of the Church will examine the entry of Anglicans into full communion with the Church and the Holy See’s response to sex abuse in the Church. Pope Benedict XVI’s successor at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, will present the themes.

Capping a “day of reflection and prayer,” the cardinals will take a look at three current and particularly sensitive themes.

The announcement came in a statement to journalists from the Holy See which outlined the schedule for the Nov. 19 retreat of the College of Cardinals. The schedule for the day before the highly anticipated cardinal-creating consistory includes discussions about religious freedom and “the liturgy in the life of the Church today.”

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When Diana Walworth of Adrian opened a letter several years ago from a discernment team at her church, St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal, telling her the team had discerned that she should study to become a priest, she was pretty stunned.

“I had no idea what I’d done (to get such discernment),” she said.

In fact, when she and the other members of her church had filled out sheets earlier listing what they each saw as their gifts and talents, “I told Sandy””ˆ”” the church’s then-rector, the Rev. Sandy Benes ”” “that ”˜I’m not sure they’ll find anything for me to do, because all I have is the ability to love.’ ”

It so happened that another person in the church, Tecumseh’s Mark Hastings, received the same letter ”” and had very much the same reaction. And over the years since that day, he said, there have been plenty of times when “you go through periods of saying, ”˜Am I worthy?’ ”

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Following the news earlier this week of five bishops resigning to join the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of protests over changes ”“ among them the ordination of women bishops ”“ two leading local figures have now admitted they are considering their position.

Father Ed Tomlinson, from St Barnabus’ Church in Tunbridge Wells and Father Ivan Aquilina of St John the Baptist in Sevenoaks, spoke about the difficult decision they face and explained the schism between traditionalists and modernisers within the church.

Father Tomlinson said: “Certainly it is fair to say that it would be very difficult for anyone with genuine Catholic convictions to stay, although some may try and do that for the time being.

“Catholicism in the Church of England is dead beyond a generation. People could stay and enjoy the last few years or could make a radical decision in the short term that would guarantee a better future.

“It is easy intellectually, but emotionally it is much harder. The important thing to say is that no decision has been made yet.”

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Pity the poor exorcist, caught between evil spirits eager to invade human bodies and a society skeptical that demons exist outside of Hollywood horror movies.

Even some church leaders look askance at exorcists as peddlers of a practice best left in the Middle Ages. Most American exorcists, particularly the handful of priests appointed by the Roman Catholic Church, keep a low profile, hesitating to open themselves ”” or their church ”” to ridicule and quacks.

But exorcists may soon be moving out of the shadows.

U.S. Catholic bishops are sponsoring a conference this weekend in Baltimore on the “liturgical and pastoral practice of exorcism.” Fifty-six bishops and 66 priests have registered to hear about the shortage of trained exorcists and the growing interest in the mysterious rite, according to Catholic News Service.

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Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, will reveal on Friday the Vatican’s plans to welcome the departing priests – including five bishops – who are expected to be received into the Catholic Church early in the new year.

Hundreds of Anglican churchgoers will join them in the Ordinariate – a structure introduced by Pope Benedict XVI to provide refuge for those diaffected with the Church of England.

The number of worshippers who leave the Church is predicted to double as the new arrangement finally begins to take shape.

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Exorcism is as old as Christianity itself. The New Testament has accounts of Jesus casting out demons, and it is cited in the Catholic Church’s catechism. But it is now far more popular in Europe, Africa and Latin America than in the United States.

Most exorcisms are not as dramatic as the bloody scenes in films. The ritual is based on a prayer in which the priest invokes the name of Jesus. The priest also uses holy water and a cross, and can alter the prayer depending on the reaction he gets from the possessed person, said Matt Baglio, a journalist in Rome who wrote the book “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist” (Doubleday, 2009).

“The prayer comes from the power of Jesus’ name and the church. It doesn’t come from the power of the exorcist. The priest doesn’t have the magic power,” said Mr. Baglio, whose book has been made into a movie to be released in January, starring Anthony Hopkins.

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Update: PZ Meyers is upset that the NY Times is taking such “madness” seriously:

Now if only we had media that dared to point out that angels and demons don’t exist.

O loving God, who orderest all things by thine unerring wisdom and unbounded love: Grant us in all things to see thy hand; that, following the example and teaching of thy servant Charles Simeon, we may walk with Christ in all simplicity, and serve thee with a quiet and contented mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Diocesan Diversity ”“ The Diocese of Toronto honours and appreciates the diversity represented in its parishes and clergy. This diversity will continue to be reflected in the selection and appointment of clergy, and in the membership of committees and councils of the diocese. We recognize there are theological and cultural differences across our diocese and within parishes which are strained by both the limits and permission represented in blessing same gender relationships.

–All congregations and individual Anglicans are called to exercise pastoral generosity one to another.
–Permission to participate in blessings of same gender commitments will be extended only to those parishes and clergy who fulfill the requirements noted above and are granted permission by the diocesan bishop.
–No clergy nor parishes will be required to participate in the blessing of same gender relationships.
–Clergy who object to blessing same gender relationships will be asked to exercise pastoral generosity by referring same gender couples seeking a blessing, if requested, to the Area Bishop.
–Clergy who support blessing same gender couples will be asked to exercise pastoral sensitivity to those in their parish who are not in agreement with the parish designation.

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On October 21, Canon Andrew White delivered a lecture titled “Pursuing Reconciliation in Iraq: The Art of Mediation Between Warring Religious Factions.” Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, the lecture focused on the role that religion must play in the peacemaking process in the Middle East.

White is president of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, and the Anglican Chaplain to Iraq and Rector of St. George’s Church in Baghdad. The recipient of the Train Foundation’s Civil Courage Prize, White has been involved in the release of more than 50 hostages in the Middle East.

“Although I’m supposedly a religious leader myself, I actually think religion is bad,” he said. “So much of what we’ve seen is religion going wrong, and causing hatred and damage and pain.”

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The Rev Canon Ken McReynolds, rector of Lambeg Parish, Connor Diocese, preached a record-breaking five hour 50 minute sermon on Saturday October 30.

This successful attempt to reclaim the record Mr McReynolds held five years ago has also raised more than £3,000 for the Church Army Evangelist Training Fund.

Eight of Mr McReynolds’ faithful flock remained in church for the duration of the sermon, and others dropped in for sections of it. “At no time were there less than 40 people listening which was a relief as I was dreading ending up preaching to just one person,” said Mr McReynolds.

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“Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the differences between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight.”
””Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics

I wish I could believe every one of these words from Reinhold Niebuhr. Instinctually, I don’t, wishing instead for Dante’s hell for certain kinds of sinners””like corrupt pastors who egregiously violate their calling and never repent. In my unregenerate opinion, I believe these types of sinners should be relegated to the eighth and ninth circles of Dante’s Inferno.

I’ve read numerous books on forgiveness. Some of them lead me to conclude that the authors have never known the kind of spiritual betrayal some Christians, including myself, have known. If they did, they could never write the pabulum they are selling.

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