Pity the ambitious women priests of the Church of England. Every time they take another step towards becoming bishops, their opponents seem to trip them up.

Earlier this year, the General Synod agreed in principle to ordain women bishops, and aspiring lady bishops in the C of E must have thought that their time had come at last. This week, however, it has emerged that a new alliance of evangelicals and traditionalists believes they can still stop women from exercising episcopal authority. They claim that last week’s Synod elections have given them sufficient blocking power within the Church of England’s governing body. Whether they are right remains to be seen.

What is certain, however, is that the squabbles over women clergy are far from over. The evangelicals and the traditionalists now have an urgent motivation to keep as many like-minded believers as possible within their Communion, what with the Vatican’s latest efforts to woo disgruntled Anglicans beginning to bear fruit. This week, Bishop John Broadbent of Fulham announced that he would be crossing the Tiber, and many others are expected to follow. The already fissiparous Church of England is beginning to tear itself apart.

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When asked about the messages emanating from the Cape Town 2010, Dr [René] Padilla said ”˜I am thankful that we can now talk openly about the social dimension of the gospel.’ Referring to the relationship of evangelism and social responsibility, Padilla recalled the analogy once given by his longtime friend, British theologian and churchman John Stott. Aged 89 and a lifelong bird watcher, John Stott advocates that proclamation of the gospel and the social dimension of the gospel go together like ”˜two wings of a bird.’

René Padilla remarked that the level of disquiet he received in 1974 was rather intense. Given the climate of Cape Town 2010, it would appear that things have clearly changed.

While taking part in a panel focusing on Latin America, René Padilla articulated three priorities facing evangelicalism in particular, and the Church as a whole. At the top of the list is what the senior statesman calls ”˜true discipleship, modelled after the original disciples of Christ.’ His other concerns, seen as interrelated and of equal importance, are globalization, which he claims breeds an unjust economic system, and the stewardship of God’s creation.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury moved last night to counter secret plotting among disaffected Anglicans who are planning to defect to Rome.

In a surprise announcement, Dr Rowan Williams said he wanted to establish a new joint group of Roman Catholic and Church of England figures to oversee the conversion process.

The proposed group would be designed to enable smooth and less painful transition for those who want to leave the Church of England to become Roman Catholics in protest at the ordination of women bishops.

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St. John’s, the fourth oldest Episcopal Church in the state, was established in 1853. For most of its history, the church thrived….

[Henry] Delamere said St. John’s predicament is a product of several factors, including a split four years ago in the wake of a church-wide split.

In addition, costs of maintaining the facility continue to increase.

“There’s a combination of other factors,” [Jan] Caselli said. “Megachurches are growing in leaps and bounds, and we have an aging congregation that’s not drawing in young families.”

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Women have been ordained as priests in all 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church, after the last holdout, in Quincy, Ill., ordained its first woman on Saturday (Oct. 16).

The Rev. Margaret Lee, a grandmother of five and former chemist, is the first woman ordained a priest in the Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy’s 133-year history, according to Episcopal News Service. She had been a deacon since 1996.

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To a standing ovation, and in front of an audience of more than 800, Foley Beach was consecrated on Saturday as the first bishop of the newly formed Anglican Diocese of the South. Beach is the rector of Holy Cross Anglican Church in Loganville.

“It’s a great day for this region and a great day for the Anglican Church in North America,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan, of the Anglican Church in North America, as he brought greetings from the Global Anglican Future Conference Archbishops, a group that represents more than 40 million Anglicans. “Whenever we make a bishop, it is just a great ceremony in which we see what we inherit.”

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Parish ministry can be a lonely vocation. The “set-apartness” of the pastoral role, the effects of geographical isolation, and the time demands of congregational life can all conspire to make the parish feel like what the old spiritual calls “the lonesome valley.” And yet Jesus walked that same lonesome valley, and, through him, even the loneliness of ministry can become a source of beauty and communion. Hear Jeremy Troxler, director of the Thriving Rural Communities initiative, discuss the loneliness of rural, and all, ministry.

If you have the capacity and interest you can download this presentation via Itunes following the link here.

A group of young adults are living at Christ Church on Broadway but working in the city that surrounds it, extending the tradition of service on which the parish was founded in 1854.

The new program is called St. Hilda’s House, and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will dedicate it at a High Mass at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The seven first-year interns are volunteering at St. Martin de Porres Academy, Christian Community Action, the Your Place youth center at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Chapel on the Green, Community Soup Kitchen and Christ Church, serving lunch, coordinating volunteers, leading after-school teen activities and holding Bible study.

Most, but not all, are considering becoming priests.

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I rushed off to attend the press conference at Queen’s Park officially launching the campaign to ask the government to give a $100 healthy food supplement to each adult on Social Assistance. There was a small crowd but only a single reporter with a few camera people in the audience to hear the three panellists with me speak about the campaign and our experience. Breakfast had been instant oatmeal with milk ”” bland; and a small juice box. No coffee. I was tired and beginning to get cranky. …

The diet on offer is meagre. By noon I was hungry and tired. A photographer was going to snap pictures as I prepared lunch. It was more complicated than I thought. I had planned on soup with some milk and a tuna sandwich, eating half my allotted can. The milk had turned sour, so a package of microwavable noodles substituted. Just add boiling water, cover and wait. I added 1/4 of my one onion to the tuna but there would be no mayo or vinaigrette to moisten it, and no butter and lettuce for the bread. And what to do with the leftovers that I needed to save for Wednesday. If you can’t afford food, you won’t have plastic wrap. I took the groceries out of the bag and used that to cover the tuna and onion mix. I had planned to add cooked rice to stretch it out a bit and perhaps help moisten it. There was no way (or time) to cook the rice. I hadn’t planned it right. And there was no point in adding salt. The noodles alone contributed 58 per cent of the daily recommended sodium intake …

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The four-hour [Union Theological Seminary] session, “Humor in Ministry,” was a kind of seminar in how to do stand-up for God.

The workshop’s leader, the Rev. Susan Sparks, pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church on East 31st Street, moonlights as a nightclub comedian. Her adjunct for the day was another stand-up comic with whom she sometimes works, Rabbi Bob A. Alper, who bills himself as “the only practicing rabbi in the world doing stand-up comedy intentionally.”

Ms. Sparks and Rabbi Alper, invited as part of the seminary’s “field-based” program to teach some of the intangibles of ministry not covered in the divinity curriculum, surveyed the arc of potentially humorous situations ”” including weddings, funerals and long, hot summer days when even the sermonizer can lose the thread of a sermon.

They discussed the often-overlooked humor in some passages of the Bible, including Jesus’ use of irony and exaggeration, and the ribaldry in the Book of Esther.

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We posed this question to eight theologians: Suppose someone who hasn’t been keeping up with theology for the past 25 years now wants to read the most important books written during that time. What five titles would you suggest?

I am interested that you seek to answer the question first before you look at the eight people’s responses they have.

Now go check it out–KSH.

[DEBORAH] POTTER: Joe Stewart-Sicking is an Episcopal priest who teaches pastoral counseling and studies why clergy are more stressed than most of us.

STEWART-SICKING: What makes the clergy vocation and occupation really different is that you work for God ultimately. If that work environment isn’t meaningful to you, you’re doing a lot of things like, you know, doing budgets or checking spelling on a bulletin, or office management, that’s going to really hit home, because you think your job should be about God.

POTTER: Add to that a new source of stress for many pastors in mainline Protestant denominations: as church membership dwindles they feel pressured to reverse the trend.

STEWART-SICKING: And a lot of pastors think that church growth is really the measure of their success, you know, and a lot of people are having to learn to deal with shrinking numbers, shrinking budgets, even closing churches.

Read or watch it all.

This comes as a 19 page pdf–read it all. The whole thing is full of interesting tidbits, but to me the most interesting material is on page 4 in table 5 in the last column (entitled “Total”).

The installation of Jane Alison Shaw as the eighth dean of Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill on Nov. 6 is a milestone ”” she will be the first woman to lead the cathedral, which was founded during the Gold Rush in 1849.

Dr. Shaw will also be the cathedral’s first openly gay dean.

“I’m glad I live in a moment in history when I can answer the call,” Dr. Shaw said in a telephone interview from England, where she is finishing work as the dean of divinity at Oxford University.

While one’s sexual orientation rarely raises an eyebrow in San Francisco these days, the Episcopal Church has been torn apart over the issue of full inclusion for gay men and lesbians. Dr. Shaw’s elevation to lead one of the denomination’s most prominent churches is “a signal moment,” said The Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, bishop of the Diocese of California. “We seek to be a house of prayer for all people.”

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The Right Rev. Philip C. Linder resigned Thursday as dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, ending a saga that began more than two months ago when the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina suspended him from his post.

The cathedral Friday made public the resignation in a two-sentence announcement, saying: “On Thursday, September 23, the Reverend Philip Linder tendered his resignation as dean of Trinity Cathedral. The Trinity Vestry voted unanimously to accept the resignation, which took effect immediately.”

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Hospital chaplains are facing disproportionately harsh cuts by Trusts despite Government cautions, according to Unite the Union.As anecdotal evidence emerges of chaplains being culled in growing numbers, Unite has launched a survey to reveal how bad the situation is. The professional officer ”¨in the Unite Health Sector responsible for healthcare chaplains, Carol English, said: “In a lot of Trusts we’ve seen a third [of chaplains] going, it’s worse in England.

“Although we know staff are going across the whole of the NHS, the healthcare chaplains are being disproportionately targeted. They’re a soft target, the talking professions as I call them; so councillors, psychotherapists, healthcare chaplains, people like that. A lot of NHS employers will see them as easy to get rid of.”

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Attorneys for the Rev. Donald Armstrong and the Pueblo District Attorney’s office were pleased Monday with the plea agreement in the criminal case involving the former rector of Grace and St. Stephen’s Church in Colorado Springs.

A Fourth Judicial District grand jury indicted Armstrong in May 2009 on 20 felony counts of embezzling $392,000 from Grace Church. Armstrong on Friday pled no contest to one felony count, according to El Paso County court files. Though Armstrong in his plea doesn’t admit guilt, the court views it in a legal sense as a guilty plea.

As part of the agreement, Armstrong admitted guilt to a new charge, misdemeanor theft, said Pueblo District Attorney Bill Thiebaut. A sentencing hearing on this charge will happen before the end of the year.

Armstrong’s sentence could include a fine of up to $5,000 and up to 18 months in the El Paso County Jail. Misdemeanor charges are brought for thefts between $500 and $1,000.

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The leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado was recently advised by Special Prosecutor, Stephen Jones that he had entered into a plea bargain with Donald Armstrong, a former priest of the diocese….

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

There were 32 worshipers at noontime Mass in a side chapel of the soaring Cathedral of SS. Michael and Gudula, which dates from the 11th century. A third of the faithful were African; there were two nuns and a police officer.

The priest, a stocky man with brushy white hair, murmured about a “time of difficulty” and spoke of Jesus and of the Pharisees, who kept the letter of God’s law without understanding his love. “The Pharisee doesn’t recognize the border between the pure and the impure,” the priest said.

His sermon before a thin crowd seemed an obvious demonstration of the anguish of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, staggered by a sexual-abuse scandal that has already affected 475 victims. There have been 19 suicide attempts, 13 of them successful, by Belgians abused by clergy members.

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Late last year, my wife gasped: “What’s wrong?” She saw me hunched at the computer, the online bill pay program flickering, my face blank and my hands limp in my lap.

“It’s gone,” was all I could say. Years of mounting debt, tens of thousands of dollars of it, had disappeared in five minutes. It was beyond belief, and I just sat staring at the screen.

Our financial deliverance was a big retroactive check for my wife’s first years of disability. After receiving the check, I sat down immediately to pay off the credit cards that we had run up since she had to stop working.

That’s right. We paid our debts. We had borrowed to pay huge, persistent medical bills, used credit cards to buy groceries and medicine when paychecks couldn’t stretch far enough, and I worked extra jobs to juggle the payments.

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* “The revisions certainly will change the character of the disciplinary process making the disciplinary landscape appear less formal, speedier and more pastoral. However, these goals mask other very unsettling realities of the new disciplinary process, more suggestive of another pastoral analogy: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15 (ESV).”

* “The increased scope of Clergy offenses is breathtaking.”

* “There is no better encapsulation of the sweeping nature of the changes than the wholesale introduction of new terminology. Indeed, many of the most profound changes are introduced by re-defining terms, a practice rightly criticized for its lack of transparency in the corporate legal world.”

* “No longer must the accuser have some knowledge with a reasonable basis ”“ anyone can and must report anything that “may” constitute an offense.”

* “The Bishop has gone from virtual exclusion to virtual control of the initial Clergy charging process.”

* “However, what new Title IV gives the Bishop Diocesan with one hand, it effectively (and stealthily) takes away from him with the other.”

* “Given the breadth and substantive nature of these changes, one is forced to wonder how this could happen. Why was there no outcry from liberal, moderate or conservative Clergy about what can only be termed “excesses?”

* “The deafening silence about these revisions forces us to believe that the sheep’s clothing strategy has been successful.”

* “One cannot help but be both simultaneously saddened and angered by the extensive revisions masked with soothing rhetoric like “pastoral reconciliation.”

Read it all very carefully.

When you stop and think about it, the entire thing is nothing short of preposterous. The pastor of a 50-person church in a small city in Florida sets the world on edge with his threat of burning Korans, and the whole thing gets so out of hand that Defense Secretary Robert Gates gives the man a call.

Think about that for a minute. The man running the military for the world’s most powerful country has to take time out of his day to make a phone call to an extremist pastor who has been called “delusional” by a Protestant church official in charge of monitoring cults in Germany, where Jones also once had a church. Gates isn’t the only powerful figure who has had to take time to address this small-time religious leader who has hit big-time media celebrity status. General Petraeus, the man running a war in Afghanistan, had to take time to warn of the consequences. And of course, President Obama has weighed in on the matter, too…..

Read it all. If you have time the comments are very interesting also.

Pope Benedict’s arrival in Britain breaks new ground on many levels, with a state welcome from the Queen and the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman. But buried in the itinerary is another and, some would say, more piquant landmark.

Next Friday, the pope will meet the Rev Jane Hedges, canon steward of Westminster Abbey and a campaigner for women bishops in the Church of England. It will be the first time the head of the Vatican, which earlier this year declared female ordination a “crime against the faith”, shakes hands with a clergywoman.

Their meeting will act as a reminder of the differences and difficulties between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic church. The abbey team is aware of the many historic aspects to the visit.

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There is no doubt that the Rev. Chip Stokes of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is doing what he loves. But he needs a break.

The past few years have been filled with anxious periods: The parish had to cut its budget by $200,000 last year. Many people he knows are jobless, including members of his own family.

Congregants left, and donations declined during the national Episcopal Church debate over whether to ordain gay men and women, a loss that hurt the priest deeply. Stokes was considered twice but rejected as a candidate for bishop of other dioceses. He has begun to develop health problems, possibly related to the challenges of his work.

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A vicar has been jailed for four years for carrying out hundreds of fake marriages to bypass immigration law.

The Reverend Alex Brown conducted 360 sham marriages during a four-year period at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards, East Sussex.

Co-defendants Vladimir Buchak, 33, and solicitor and pastor Michael Adelasoye, 50, were also jailed for four years.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it was thought to be the largest sham marriage case yet brought to court.

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From here:

Bishop Lawrence has called for a meeting of all parochial clergy of the diocese who have seat, voice and vote at the Convention for Thursday, September 2, 2010. The meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m. at St. Paul’s in Summerville. In preparation for the meeting clergy are asked to review a copy of the Title IV canon changes passed at the last General Convention. This will be central to tomorrow’s discussions. View the document. Clergy are encouraged to bring a printed copy of the document with them to the meeting.

It is one part of a very full fall.

The wake-up call comes after a series of police-involved shootings since early July that have left four men dead and a community asking hard questions.

On July 5, a rookie police officer shot and killed DeCarlos Moore in Overtown as Moore disobeyed an order and returned to his car. He had no weapon.

The most recent case involved Tarnorris Tyrell Gaye, 19, who was shot and killed last Friday by the same officer who shot and killed a man during a sting-gone-bad nine days earlier.

That day, police say, 16-year-old Joell Lee Johnson was killed during an undercover police operation involving holdups of fast-food deliverers after the teen pointed a gun at the officer.

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Jo Kelly-Moore, 42, was welcomed as the new Anglican Dean of Auckland at a service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell.

Family and friends watched as she was brought in by parishioners of St Aidan’s Anglican Church in Remuera, where she has been a vicar since 2004.

She is the first woman to be made an Anglican dean in Auckland, and the second woman to be made an Anglican dean in New Zealand’s history.

The first female and current dean of the Waiapu Anglican Cathedral in Napier is The Very Reverend Helen Jacobi.

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A lesbian minister, who officiated at more than a dozen same-sex weddings during the brief window gay marriage was legal in California, goes to trial Thursday before a Presbyterian court, charged with violating her denomination’s constitution.

The case of the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr has gained national attention because “what is being tested is the definition of marriage” in the Presbyterian faith, said the Rev. Carmen Fowler, president of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative organization that opposes same-sex marriage.

Spahr’s trial, which will be held in Napa, begins less than three weeks after a federal court judge ruled that California’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. And it underscores the awkward position in which changing civil law places many clergy members.

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