The Commission of Investigation into Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese has concluded that there is “no doubt” that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the archdiocese and other Church authorities.
The commission’s report covers the period between January 1st 1975 and April 30th 2004. It said there cover-ups took place over much of this period.
In its report, published this afternoon, it has also found that “the structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up.”
The vicar of an Anglo-Catholic church has received a threatening phone call warning him of violence if his parish goes over to Rome ”“ and his noticeboard has been defaced with the words “C of E No Pope” daubed across it in white paint.
Fr David Waller of St Saviour’s, Walthamstow, discovered the vandalism on Sunday morning as he prepared for Mass. Then he found the a message waiting for him on his answering machine threatening him with physical violence. But, when I spoke to him a few minutes ago, he didn’t sound remotely intimidated. “The message was distorted ”“ it sounded drunken and I don’t want to make too much of it,” he said.
St Saviour’s is a Forward in Faith parish and, although no decision has been made, Fr Waller is very encouraged by the Pope’s offer of a Personal Ordinariate. “The key players in the parish, including the churchwardens, are completely disillusioned with the Church of England and see the Ordinariate as the solution. I can’t speak for all the silent folk in the pews, but a significant number of them are Eastern European Roman Catholics, so I don’t think it would be a problem for them.”
Former Episcopalians who have found a traditional refuge in Catholicism, where the priesthood remains closed to women and openly gay clergy, are applauding the Vatican’s plan to help additional dissatisfied conservatives convert.
But while the welcome extends to married priests ”” a narrow loophole in the Catholic Church’s celibacy requirement ”” most of those who have already converted say they want to remain rare exceptions.
“We trust the church’s wisdom regarding the discipline of celibacy,” said the Rev. D. Paul Sullins, who left the Episcopal Church 10 years ago with his wife and recently surveyed his colleagues on this issue. “A man who is married has two somewhat conflicting sets of commitments.
“It’s difficult to balance them, and having a family also makes it difficult to move at short notice to another assignment.”
Kneeling during an ancient laying-on-of-hands ritual, the Rev. Susan Slaughter on Sunday became the first woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
Among a sea of friends, relatives and colleagues gathered at St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church, Slaughter was ordained by the Right Rev. Edwin F. “Ted” Gulick Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, who has also been serving as provisional bishop of the Fort Worth Diocese.
A letter of congratulations from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori read by Gulick said: “I give thanks to God for this sign of the resurrection of the Diocese of Fort Worth. Susan, may his light shine through you. May the widow’s gifts spread throughout your diocese.”
When Simeon moved to put benches in the aisles, the church wardens threw them out. He battled with discouragement and at one point wrote out his resignation.
“When I was an object of much contempt and derision in the university,” he later wrote, “I strolled forth one day, buffeted and afflicted, with my little Testament in my hand ”¦ The first text which caught my eye was this: ‘They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; him they compelled to bear his cross.'”
Slowly the pews began to open up and fill, not primarily with townspeople but with students. Then Simeon did what was unthinkable at the time: he introduced an evening service. He invited students to his home on Sundays and Friday evening for “conversation parties” to teach them how to preach. By the time he died, it is estimated that one-third of all the Anglican ministers in the country had sat under his teaching at one time or another.
The Rev. Richard Rodgers of Blessed Sacrament Old Catholic Church in Racine, Wis., has presided over Masses since 1989. But Rodgers isn’t a typical priest ”” the 62-year-old pastor is married and has a son and grandchildren.
A former Episcopalian minister, Rodgers leads a seven-member congregation in the Chicago Diocese of the Old Catholic Church, a hybrid of Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions.
“I left the Episcopal Church because it was slowly descending into chaos,” Rodgers said, referring to his opposition to the church’s acceptance of openly gay clergy, blessing over same-sex unions and allowance of female priests and bishops.
THE Grahamstown community is reeling in shock at the mystery murder of an Anglican priest who survived a gruesome attack by two men on a countrywide killing spree in 1991.
Clive Newman, 45, a lecturer at the College of the Transfiguration in Grahamstown for the past four years, was found murdered in his room at the college residence yesterday morning.
Newman was attacked in his car in Bluewater Bay 18 years ago. His throat was slit and one of his vocal chords was severed. His testimony helped convict Antonie Wessels, 31, and his 16-year-old homosexual lover, Jean Havenga. Newman was the fourth and final victim of the pair and the only one to survive.
Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution establishing personal ordinariates for Anglicans in communion with Rome does not alter the discipline of clerical celibacy nor the esteem the Church has for this practice, the Vatican clarified.
This clarification was given today in a statement from the Vatican announcing “Anglicanorum Coetibus,” Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution for Anglicans who want to enter the Catholic Church. Complementary norms and an official commentary were also published.
–Former Catholic priests who became Anglicans can’t be priests, and likewise men in “irregular” marriages are ineligible.
–Former Anglican bishops not recognized as bishops in the new ordinariates may nevertheless take part in bishops’ conference meetings (with the status of a retired bishop), and may ask Rome’s permission to wear the insignia of a bishop.
–Priests will be permitted to have a “secular” job outside the church, with the permission of their ordinary ”“ perhaps a concession to the reality that at least at the beginning, these ordinariates are likely to struggle with financial resources.
One of the hardest things Ed Donaghy has ever done was leave his ministry as a Catholic priest. For months, he agonized over his conflicting desires to have a family and serve as a priest in the Sacramento Diocese.
In the end, Donaghy felt he had no choice. The priest, who served in Woodland, Calif., told his bishop that he had to leave.
That was four decades ago.
“It would have been wonderful to be married and be a priest,” said Donaghy, 73, now retired as an insurance agent. “I loved the work and would have continued.”
Donaghy is one of more than 75 men in the Sacramento area who have left active ministry in the priesthood to marry. Many of them, Donaghy said, “would have returned in a minute if the rules changed.” That is not likely to happen soon.
The Rev. Dale Coleman, who has quietly led St. George’s Episcopal Church in Belleville for two years, believes there are people at his former church in New Mexico “who want to destroy me.”
He said that a vendetta has followed him to Belleville that started over ideological differences involving homosexuals in the church but escalated into a series of personal attacks that he still faces in court, including that the married minister improperly spent church money on a girlfriend.
Coleman opened himself up to scrutiny by his former church by filing a lawsuit to force the church to pay $40,000 left unpaid on a $115,000 severance agreement.
[The] Rev [Rod] Garner was a guest of honour at historic St Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery ”“ where the priest-in-charge is a female of Indian descent.
He told Church News how Episcopalian worship ”“ effectively protestant ministry ”“ in New York had long finished the debate on whether women or homosexuals should be allowed to serve God ”“ and encouraged the Anglican church to take note.
Rev Garner said: “Instead of closing down the door of the church to people based on their sexuality or gender, places like St Mark’s have harnessed it and set the church forward as a model for the human community.”
Episcopal priest Gregory Malia did not injure anyone when he allegedly waved a handgun at his two daughters and their boyfriends outside a Jenkins Township tavern in July, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Attorney Nanda Palissery said there was no evidence the gun was loaded.
Jenkins Township police allege in arrest records that Malia, 44, of Laflin, waved a gun as his daughter, Marilyn Malia, 23, was being assaulted by Angela Sweet, 24, in the parking lot of the River Street Ale House on July 7.
After nearly two hours of testimony, District Judge Diana Malast agreed with Palissery, dismissing four felony counts of aggravated assault, the most serious charges, against Malia.
Nearly 700 Ohio Catholic priests and bishops will gather in Columbus this week (Nov. 5-6) in an unprecedented attempt to bolster marriage, which they see as an imperiled institution.
The two-day conference is in response to soaring divorce rates, people living together without marital commitments and the growing trend of same-sex unions, said Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
“In general, the state of marriage is not as healthy as we would like it to be,” he said.
An article in today’s Financial Times, headed ”˜Vicars’ pensions under threat as church is seduced by equities cult’, is misconceived and fails to take adequate account of the scheme’s relative age compared to other schemes, says Dr Jonathan Spencer, Chairman of the Church of England Pensions Board:
“The scheme concerned is responsible for paying pensions in respect of clergy service after 1 January 1998. The fact of the matter is that this scheme remains quite ”˜immature’ in pensions terms, with approximately £70m coming in each year to fund future pensions, and only around £12m going out. So the scheme’s main liabilities are some way in the future. With this in mind, we have acted at all times in accordance with mainstream actuarial and investment advice given by the Board’s professional advisors. This advice has consistently been that the Board should place the scheme’s investments in equities and equity type investments, which have historically produced the best returns.
At present, the Church’s one million worshippers each give about £70 a year towards clergy pensions, amounting to £7,800 a year for each clergyman or woman. To make ends meet, this would have to increase to £110 per worshipper, or £11,000 for each stipendiary cleric. A diocesan consultation has concluded that worshippers are already giving as much as they can afford and that any increase along these lines is unsustainable.
“The view is that we are at the limit of affordability,” a Church pensions insider said.
Dr Jonathan Spencer, the chairman of the Church of England pensions board, said that the board’s professional advisers had “consistently” recommended placing the scheme’s assets in equities, “which have historically produced the best returns”.
Today the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh formally released 135 priests and deacons who have not been active in the Episcopal Church since October of last year.
In letters being mailed today from Bishop Kenneth L. Price, Jr. to each of the affected clergy, the diocese is making good on its offer to release the individuals from their licensed ministry in the Episcopal Church in a way that does not involve disciplinary action.
“The Diocese will proceed to notify the Recorder of Ordinations to remove you from the list of clergy licensed to exercise ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church,” Bishop Price writes in his letter.
Young Anglican vicars are facing the prospect of a bleaker retirement after the Church of England’s pension scheme succumbed to the “cult of equity” and sank 100 per cent of its investments into stocks towards the end of the 1990s bull market.
The Church of England’s current pension scheme for the clergy is now considering sharply curtailing the rate at which they accrue benefits. For a young clergyman, aged 30, these benefits could turn out to be less than half of what recent retirees are receiving.
Shaun Farrell, chief executive of the Church of England Pensions Board, said the collapse of share prices had driven a “huge great hole” in the finances of the scheme, which was created in January 1998. But he said the scheme had invested in equities because its pay-out date was a long way off and “equities will give you the highest returns over the long run”.
Quoting Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the statement denies that the delay of the constitution’s publication is due to differing positions within the Holy See.
The note revealed that the constitution is expected to be completed by the end of the first week of November, along with a list of guidelines that will be followed in receiving these Anglican communities into the Church.
“The delay is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references,” said Cardinal Levada in the clarification.
An excerpt:
Gospel ministry is not just proclamation, evangelism, and pastoral care; it involves contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. If, at the end of the day, we have maintained Christian orthodoxy but failed to proclaim the gospel, we cannot claim to have pleased Christ nor fulfilled the New Testament ministry. In just the same way, if, at the end of the day we have proclaimed the gospel but failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy, we will have failed Christ.
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a brilliant example of contending for the faith. If the church is the temple of the living God and if that temple is holy, then tolerance of what God calls unholy will provoke his jealousy. There is an astonishing campaign at present in Canada and the USA to portray the blessing of same sex unions as a little in-house issue for the church, that those opposing this constitutionalization of sexual immorality are somehow missing the point and being side-tracked from gospel ministry. I received a letter this week from someone in the diocese of New Westminster who referred to the stance of biblically orthodox Anglicans as a “tedious and unnecessary conflict.” If that is the case then 1 Corinthians is a tedious and unnecessary book and the holiness of the people for whom Christ died is also tedious and unnecessary. We cannot just be pragmatic about this. We cannot believe those who say: “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Christian ministry which pleases Christ and is faithful to the New Testament will involve both gospel proclamation as well as contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
The Vatican today issued a statement about its plans to create a personal Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans which discusses the possibility of ordaining married laymen on a case-by-case basis.
Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was seeking to quash speculation that the publication of the Apostolic Constitution had been held up by squabbles over the ordination of married men. Not true, he insists.
His statement makes clear that celibacy will be the norm for priests in the Ordinariate ”“ but does not rule out the possibility of married seminarians becoming priests, so long as the local Ordinary, the bishops’ conference and the Holy See agree that an exception should be made. My reading of this document is that it does not completely close the door on the possibility of future married seminarians being ordained.
What kind of personal pain would cause a 42-year-old pastor to abandon his family, his calling and even life itself? Members of a Baptist church here are asking that question after their pastor committed suicide in his parked car in September.
Those who counsel pastors say Christian culture, especially Southern evangelicalism, creates the perfect environment for depression. Pastors suffer in silence, unwilling or unable to seek help or even talk about it. Sometimes they leave the ministry. Occasionally the result is the unthinkable.
Experts say clergy suicide is a rare outcome to a common problem.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was long known as one of the most conservative in the Episcopal Church, and one measure was the refusal by its bishops to ordain women to the priesthood.
When a large majority of clergy and lay delegates of the diocese voted to follow Bishop Jack Iker’s recommendation and leave the Episcopal Church, that split the diocese into churches leaving the denomination (most of them) and those choosing to stay.
The group choosing to stay has long wanted to ordain women to the priesthood – and that will finally happen in Fort Worth this Sunday. Deacon Susan Slaughter will be the history-maker.
Women vicars comprised 15 per cent of the parochial-incumbent status clergy of the Church of England at the close of 2007, the Second Church Estates Commissioner told Parliament last week. “
At the end of 1997, six per cent of parochial-incumbent status clergy ”” or 426 overall ”” were women, whereas in 2007, 15 per cent, or 974, were women,” Sir Stuart Bell said on Oct 15. However, the number of full-time parochial clergy had also fallen over the past 10 years, from 7,471 at the end of 1997 to 6,450 on Dec 31, 2007.
The Rt. Rev. James M. Adams Jr. says he has a ready answer when people ask why he would return to parish ministry after only seven years as a bishop.
“If you’ve ever been a bishop, you would know,” he said.
“In 20 some-odd years as a parish priest, I never missed a day of God’s joy,” he said. “Being a bishop today is not what it once was. It’s more of being an administrator.”
Still, Bishop Adams, who has served the Diocese of Western Kansas since 2002, also speaks with clear affection for the Episcopalians he will leave behind in March 2010, when he moves to Lecanto, Fla.
“I have a lot of respect for these people. They have endured and survived every situation that has come their way,” he said. “They have survived, despite everything that has happened in the church, everything that has happened in the economy and everything that has happened in the world. That says a lot about them and their love of their Lord.”
In light of the announcement by the Vatican of the creation of new ecclesiastical structures to make room for disaffected catholic-minded Anglicans to move over to the Roman Catholic Church, it seems important for catholic-minded Anglicans who have long been an integral part of the Anglican Communion to reassert their understanding of catholicity and tradition within Anglicanism.
The Society of Catholic Priests, formed the the early 1990s in the UK, has established a new branch of the Society in North America. Its mission is to promote priestly spirituality and catholic evangelism within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Interestingly the announcement by the Vatican, while seemingly highlighting differences between the Anglican Communion and the Vatican over issues of ecclesiology, sexuality and ordination points to a more durable fact. There is an amazing degree of overlap between these two bodies across a range of theological issues that make such a move possible. Our catholic heritage within Anglicanism makes such an initiative feasible.
For those priests who find themselves unable, on a variety of grounds, to in good conscience remain Anglican, such a move may make some sense. While Anglicanism has developed varied patterns of authority and different systems for decision making, many feel drawn towards the more centralized structures and the official understandings of Roman Catholicism.
On the other hand, anglo-catholics have found the openness of the Anglican tradition, allowing for a wide range of views and different approaches, to reflect the realities of life in the Body of Christ as it is lived out in history and the world. For many within the catholic tradition, recent changes are a natural extension of our understanding of the evolution of tradition within the life of the Church. The catholic tradition has never been about simply safeguarding narrowly explicit interpretations of scripture but about engaging the contributions and experience of all the members of the Body of Christ in the life of the Church.
Our very sacramental and liturgical life is an outgrowth of our understanding of the value, indeed the essential nature, of human experience in expressing the life of a living Christ among us. Worship of a living God is expressed in a living tradition, and utilizes the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, both of which are essential to the nature of catholicity.
As new questions face the Church, new rites evolve to address the human experience. The catholic tradition is one that lives in and confronts the complexities of the world as it is in all of its myriad grace and potentiality as well as in its vexing questions and dilemmas. The Church, at times is both anchor and sail in society. Its catholicity is that which holds fast to the essential in the face of volatility and proclaims newness of life when it is necessary.
In the face of division and anger, the Society of Catholic Priests is offering a life together that holds fast to the traditions of the Church while making room for the movement of grace, charity, and hope. It gives a non-anxious place for priests who are looking to find a place of rest amidst the eddies of church life. It is a place for the complexity of difference to meet the simplicity of devotion. It is a Society that looks to center itself in the mainstream of the Church, on the Prayer Book, and in our tradition. Our lives have been consecrated to the service of the Church and the Society of Catholic Priests welcomes those looking to be still, refrain from anger, and hope again for the unity of the Church in all of its diversity.
Robert Hendrickson
Communications Director
The Society of Catholic Priests
North American Province
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The Society of Catholic Priests in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada exists to help all clergy flourish as priests in the Catholic Tradition of the Church and to encourage spiritual growth and Catholic Evangelism. More information on the Society can be found at our website: http://www.theSCP.org/. Those interested in registering for the Inaugural Assembly of this province of the Society may do so at http://thescp2009assembly.eventbrite.com/.
The current debate about the implications of the offer made by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to make provision for Anglicans who wish to join the Roman Catholic Church ignores one important fact. The majority of catholics within the church are in favour of women’s ministry and wish to remain loyal to the Anglican tradition within the Anglican Communion.
The Vatican’s invitation to disaffected Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church sends a “terrible message” to gays and women, a local Episcopal priest said.
The Rev. Paul Bresnahan of St. Peter’s Church in Salem said he is troubled by the Catholic Church’s unexpected overture this week, which appeared to be aimed at conservative Anglicans who have become disillusioned with their church, in part over its acceptance of openly gay bishops and female priests.
“It sends a terrible message to the gay community,” said Bresnahan, the father of two gay sons. “It says, in effect, you’re not welcome here. To me, that slams the door shut in your face.”
The decision by Pope Benedict XVI to reach out to Anglicans, who split from the Catholic Church in the 16th century and are currently facing deep discord, is also an affront to women, Bresnahan said. Many conservative Anglicans oppose the ordination of women, a position also held by the Catholic church.