Kattey, who was released by his abductors after nine days of captivity in the forest, said the political leadership in the country must begin to be sensitive to the plights of the governed by carrying out the basic responsibilities of government to her citizens.

The Archbishop while narrating his ordeal in the den of his abductors, frowned at the allegation by the Rivers State Police Command that it facilitated his rescue. “The police did not rescue me and my wife. That the police rescued me and my wife is not true. I saw the police for the first time two days ago. The police public relations officer is telling lies. The commissioner of police apologised to me yesterday (Tuesday), “he said.

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An acid attack on a Roman Catholic priest in Zanzibar is heightening fears of increased religious tensions on the Tanzanian islands, where Christian clergy, churches and some Muslim leaders are being targeted.

On Sept. 13, the Rev. Anselm Mwang’amba, 61, suffered burns on his face, chest and arms when acid was thrown at him as he left an Internet cafe. The attack came barely a month after acid was thrown on two British teenage tourists, Kirstie Trup and Katie Gee.

“We are urging Christians not to retaliate,” said the Rev. Cosmas Shayo, diocesan chancellor. “We are depending on the police for security. They say action has been taken, but we are not satisfied since the attacks are continuing.”

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The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Magnus Abe, has charged Nigerians to see the travails of the Dean, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Ignatius Kattey, in the hands of kidnappers as a wake-up call, insisting that the country can no longer afford to play with the issue of security.

Abe, who stated this during a visit to Kattey shortly after he was released by his abductors, however said joblessness and financial challenges should not be placed as excuses for indulging in kidnapping and armed robbery. Kattey, who is also the Archbishop, Province of the Niger Delta and Bishop of the Diocese of the Niger Delta North, was released by his abductors on Saturday night after spending nine days in captivity.

“I just want to use this opportunity to thank Christian faithful across the country; every Christian in this country showed concern; so I thank all of us for what God has done and to say that this actually is a wake-up call for us as a country. We can no longer afford to play with the issue of security,” Abe, who representing Rivers South East in the National Assembly, said.

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The Anglican Communion has given thanks to God for the safe release of the Church of Nigeria’s second most senior cleric, Archbishop Ignatius Kattey.

Provincial Dean Abp Kattey and his wife were kidnapped more than a week ago by armed men near their residence in the southern city of Port Harcourt. Mrs Kattey was later abandoned by the kidnappers.

Statements of concern and prayers were issued around the Anglican Communion, not least from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who has visited Nigeria many times.

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Soon after Mandela took office, Tutu chided him for increasing MPs’ salaries and for not closing down the apartheid arms trade. When Mandela accused him of being a “populist”, he hit back, typically, though, tempering his attack with an affectionate critique of Mandela’s colourful shirts. Tutu had made his point. The ultimate pastoral interventionist was not going to let Mandela’s stature inhibit him from speaking his mind. To the irritation of the ANC he would retain his independence.

As the ANC became rather accustomed to the perks of power, so his critiques sharpened. In 2004 he lamented that only “an elite few” had reached the “promised land”. Just four months ago, he said that he would no longer vote for the ANC, citing inequality, violence and corruption as among the reasons for his loss of support. When I ask for his current thinking on the party, he turns to “a lovely quote in Isaiah”.

“”˜Look to the rock from which you are hewn.’ We were hewn from a rock of people who were ready to lay down their lives for freedom”¦ We have very many good things that are happening but you long for us to remember why we were in the ­struggle and what kind of South Africa we would love to see. We have accomplished a part of the dream”¦ and some things subvert that dream.”

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From here:

Forward in Faith regrets the decision of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales to authorize the ordination of women as bishops without first agreeing arrangements for those who, for theological reasons, will not be able to receive episcopal ministry from them.

We cannot see how a female bishop could be what a diocesan bishop should be ”“ a Father in God and a focus of unity for all within his diocese. This vote therefore makes the question of the provision of episcopal ministry for those who continue to uphold catholic faith and order in the Church in Wales even more pressing.

Experience in Wales and elsewhere does not give us confidence that the promised ”˜code of practice’ could offer the level of assurance that would encourage growth and flourishing ”“ so sorely needed in Wales ”“ or the degree of certainty that would remove the possibility of damaging and distracting disputes.

Our brothers and sisters in Credo Cymru will seek to enter into dialogue with the Welsh bishops. We can only hope that their representations will be met with the generosity of spirit that ought to be the hallmark of Christian episcopacy. Meanwhile, we continue to pray for and with our Welsh sisters and brothers, encouraging them to follow St David in being joyful and keeping the faith.

X JONATHAN FULHAM

The Rt Revd Jonathan Baker, Bishop of Fulham, Chairman

“The Church has been too slow in terms of putting structures in place,” said Youth Co-ordinator for the Church of the Province of Central Africa, Fr Robert Sihubwa. “While we acknowledge the verbal commitment, the lack of funding commitments indicates slow movement.”

Tony Lawrence is the Provincial Youth Co-ordinator for the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. He told ACNS, “Changing our approaches and actively focusing on the ministry to children and young people is critical for the growth and survival of the Church.”

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The Church of England was left isolated in the UK in its opposition to women bishops after the Church in Wales voted yesterday to ordain women bishops.

The first woman could be consecrated in Wales in just over a year.

The bill was passed by a two-thirds majority in the houses of laity, clergy and bishops. A code of practice will now be drawn up to safeguard the place of traditionalists. The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said that it made “no theological sense” not to ordain women as bishops when the Church already ordained them as deacons…

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The Anglican Church in Wales voted on Thursday to allow the ordination of women bishops, putting pressure on the Church of England, the last part of Britain and Ireland to hold onto the men-only rule.

Disagreements over whether women can become bishops and over gay relationships have roiled the 80-million strong Anglican Communion – the world’s third largest Christian grouping after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

The Welsh vote will intensify the spotlight on the Anglican leader, Archbishop Justin Welby, who wants to speed up plans to allow women bishops in England. Scotland and Ireland allow female bishops although none have been ordained.

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Fighting between security forces and rogue Muslim rebels seeking to declare an independent state escalated in a southern Philippine city on Thursday and spread to a second island, officials said.

U.S.-trained commandos exchanged gunfire with a breakaway faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) holding dozens of hostages in Zamboanga City, on the southernmost island of Mindanao, army spokesman Domingo Tutaan said.

The violence illustrates the security challenge potential investors face in the impoverished south of the majority Roman Catholic country despite a strong nationwide economic performance in the second quarter.

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The Diocese of Niger Delta North will not pay a ransom for its kidnapped archbishop, the Most Rev. Ignatius Kattey ”“ Dean of the Church of Nigeria and Archbishop of the Province of the Niger Delta.

At an 8 September 2013 press conference in Port Harcourt, the Ven. Richard Opara, president of the diocesan clergy council said that while no ransom demand had been received, the diocese would not negotiate with criminals.

“No contact has been made with the captors. We will not pay any ransom. Ransom payment is not in our dictionary. We are only asking for his unconditional release. We are not happy and the Church of Nigeria is weeping because the number two man has been taken away,” the archdeacon told the press conference.

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Senior leaders of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) will still meet for their bi-annual Standing Committee, despite the kidnapping of their Provincial Dean.

The second most senior cleric in the Church of Nigeria, Dean of the Province and Archbishop of Niger Delta Province, the Most Revd Ignatius Kattey, was kidnapped by armed men late on Friday evening.

Provincial Communciations Director, Canon Taiwo Faluso, said, “We are praying that God in His infinite mercy will grant us, very quickly, the Dean’s release from the hoodlums that took him”.

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The Dean of the Anglican Church of Nigeria [River State], Archbishop Ignatius Kattey, was abducted at about 10.30pm on Friday, as he journeyed in the company of his wife, Beatrice, from Eleme to Port Harcourt.

It was gathered that the abductors later freed the cleric’s wife, following a chase by the police.

The Bishop was taken to an unknown destination….

Read it all and you can see the diocesan information there and you can see the basic location in Nigeria on the map here.

The Head of the Anglican Church in St. Kitts and Nevis Archdeacon Valentine Hodge is making it clear that the Church does not support gay marriage, or condone a homosexual lifestyle.

“I can only speak…on the behalf of the Anglican Church which is the church in the province of the West Indies”¦um at the moment we cannot marry in church two people of the same sex…We believe in indissoluble monogamous marriage that is something which should last for life.. indissoluble.. and, we also believe that it is something between a man and a woman,” the Archdeacon said, speaking on WINN FM’s Breakfast Show Thursday.

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The Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who has died aged 74, was described by Robert Lowell as “the most important Irish poet since Yeats”. Widely acclaimed for his many notable achievements, he was undoubtedly the most popular poet writing in English, and the only one assured of a place in the bestseller lists. His books sold, and continue to sell, in the tens of thousands, while hordes of “Heaneyboppers” flocked to his readings. His earliest influences, Robert Frost and Ted Hughes, are reflected throughout his work, but most especially in his first two collections, where he recollected images of his childhood on the family farm in Co Derry. Other poets, especially Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy, as well as Dante, also influenced his work….

[About him] the critic Helen Vendler wrote: “Seamus broadened my view of Ireland, north and south ”“ its geography, its history, its labour, its sounds, its euphemisms, its crises of conscience, its bog bodies, its bombs, its weather, its sectarian stand-offs, its twilights.” Poet and critic Robert Pinsky praised Heaney’s “gift for laughter and for friendship, a generosity entirely congruent with the qualities of his great gift and accomplishment in art”.

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In the suburbs of Seattle, an ancient West-African religion is gaining followers. Yoruba, from the Yoruba people of Nigeria, has been spreading across the U.S. for the last 50 years.

The religion is particularly popular with African-Americans who find it offers a spiritual path and a deep sense of cultural belonging.

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Almost a tenth of children are given a mobile phone before age five, new research shows.

A uSwitch.com report found the average child gets their first mobile aged 11 years and eight months ”“ soon after starting secondary school. But more than a million received a phone before they started primary school.

Parents claim they need to give their child a phone as security in case of emergencies and to give themselves peace of mind. However a children’s organisation warned giving a child their own phone could encourage them to become sedentary, wasting time in front of screens browsing social networks, rather than being active at play.

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For more than two years, [Shusaku Tani]… has come to a small room, taken a seat and then passed the time reading newspapers, browsing the Web and poring over engineering textbooks from his college days. He files a report on his activities at the end of each day.

Sony, Mr. Tani’s employer of 32 years, consigned him to this room because they can’t get rid of him. Sony had eliminated his position at the Sony Sendai Technology Center, which in better times produced magnetic tapes for videos and cassettes. But Mr. Tani, 51, refused to take an early retirement offer from Sony in late 2010 ”” his prerogative under Japanese labor law.

So there he sits in what is called the “chasing-out room.” He spends his days there, with about 40 other holdouts.

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Former Primate, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), The Most Reverend (Dr) Peter Akinola, has raised the alarm that the nation is under siege and its future remains bleak, unless conscious effort is made to wage war against corruption, which has remained the greatest challenge to its development.

The cleric stated this while addressing newsmen at a Media Roundtable on “Breaking the Corruption Jinx in Nigeria,” at his Abeokuta home on Tuesday.

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This summer was no ‘vacation’ in the traditional sense as I worked to complete over 370 hours to fulfill the Summer Ministry Intensive but I loved every hour. Most of those hours were spent working with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI) community in Kampala, Uganda….

I felt bringing a pastoral care framework in an attempt to re-write exclusive theological narratives in Uganda would be effective because the country is overwhelmingly religious. In the most recent census, only 0.9% of as the population identified as non-religious while 82.6% identified as Christian. This “on the ground” reality of religiosity has been a breeding ground for Western Evangelical missionaries’ importation of homophobia and transphobia with few dissenting voices. As a Christian convicted in the belief that God loves and affirms the lives of queer and trans people, I felt called to bring that news here.

In Uganda it is commonly believed that homosexuality is a Western phenomenon, yet a brief history of the country makes it evident that homophobia, not homosexuality, is the Western import. For this reason, I believe the first step towards change is a new theology.

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

During a trip which will also include visits to Guatemala and Mexico, he praised the Anglican church in the West Indies for its “imaginative” contributions to the “unity and well-being” of the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop Justin and his wife, Caroline, arrived yesterday in Bardados for a two-day visit at the invitation of the Most Revd Dr John Holder, Archbishop of the Church of the Province of the West Indies and Bishop of Barbados.

The trip is part of a series of visits to Anglican Primates which the Archbishop is making during his first eighteen months in post.

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Archbishop Justin has spoken of the “joyful” work of building Christian-Muslim relationships in his first annual message to Muslims on Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.

He encouraged the “hard” but also “joyful” work of building “deep and long-lasting relationships” between the two faith communities, which he said he had experienced during his time working in Nigeria.
– See more at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5117/archbishop-on-eid-al-fitr-let-us-build-deep-and-lasting-ties-with-each-other#sthash.NfFu4T7M.dpuf

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On Friday, the faithful throngs crowded along Copacabana beach to walk the Stations of the Cross, life-sized constructions along Avenida Atlantica, at which the cross of World Youth Day and the Icon of Our Lady paused and the dramatization of each station was televised on the multiple big screens along the beach. At the end of the procession, the cross was raised on the stage from which the Pope delivered a sermon in a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. For Oliver Petter from the Diocese of London, currently in his second year of seminary in Oxford, Friday evening’s events were particularly impressive. The difference in the symbolism in Brazil was of note for him ”“ he commented that many countries perform the stations of the cross with a ”˜body’ present, but: “”¦to process with an empty cross here with a crown of thorns”¦ it symbolizes absence, loss”¦ and yet 1 million people there on the beach, such a manifestation of resurrection, in stillness and reverence”¦ that was very moving”¦”’

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On his debut abroad the first Latin American pope put a spring in the church’s step in the world’s largest Roman Catholic country. He also””with a long, informal press conference””underlined the new style that his papacy has brought, heralding a softer tone on sexual issues, and a tougher line on Vatican cliques.

Humble and plain-speaking, Francis drew huge crowds despite the wet and cold of the southern winter. His energy and urgency was a marked break with the sense of drift that has afflicted the Latin American church. And it contrasted with two lacklustre visits by his cerebral predecessor, Benedict. A final mass on Rio’s Copacabana beach drew 1m people: a record rivalled only by John Paul II’s trips to Poland. He told them: “Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the margins of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent.” At a meeting of bishops, he called for a new “missionary spirit” and decried “obsolete structures”. He led by example, visiting a favela (slum) and meeting the sick, young offenders and former drug addicts.

In word and deed, that was a rebuke to the church for its retreat from the poor urban peripheries, where Pentecostalist competitors have flourished. He also, by implication, challenged the Pentecostalists’ theology, often a gung-ho message of prosperity through piety, with a forthright attack on capitalism’s “disposable” culture.

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On the Sunday in mid-June when a yeshiva in Manhattan ordained three women as Orthodox Jewish religious leaders, Nelson Mandela lay in a Pretoria hospital for the second week with a life-threatening lung infection. Six time zones and 8,000 miles separated these two events. One golden thread, however, bound them together.

That connection was Sara Hurwitz, the dean of Yeshivat Maharat, which had educated the women. She was the first woman ever to have been designated a maharat ”” an acronym from the Hebrew words for a teacher of Jewish law and spirituality ”” and to subsequently receive the title of “rabba” from the maverick Orthodox rabbi who had trained her, Avi Weiss. For Ms. Hurwitz, born and raised in South Africa during the turbulent years of apartheid, Mr. Mandela had long served as the inspiration for her journey to breaking the gender barrier in the Orthodox Jewish rabbinate.

“I looked at this person as someone who could have been so angry and so disappointed at the land that incarcerated him for so many years for civil disobedience,” Rabba Hurwitz, 36, said in a recent interview. “And he walked out of prison and formed a peaceful government. He could have focused on the injustice of it all, the time he had lost. But instead he saw this newfound freedom as a chance to make change and do what was right. Marching forward, one step after the other, toward justice, without anger.”

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The Pernambuco Court of Appeal (Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de Pernambuco) has stayed a lower court decision giving ownership of church properties in the state to the minority faction loyal to the national Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB). The effect of last week’s decision is to return custody of the church properties to the Diocese of Recife and its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Miguel Uchôa, while the court conducts a de novo review of the dispute.

On 31 July 2013 Bishop Uchôa told Anglican Ink the diocese was ready to turn over the properties to the IEAB but on “the 21st the state high court judged our appeal and gave us a positive answer. The state high court judges will now review the case. It means that they accepted [the case for study] and said ”˜no’ to the first judge who had given the [properties] to the IEAB.”

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Rwanda comes across as an incredible country. The genocide produced 5.5 deaths every minute for 100 days. Adrien lost five brothers and a sister; when the 2011 Tour of Rwanda goes past his grandmother’s house he pedals faster to keep the memories at bay. Documentation disappeared in the atrocity, so the riders have to be given new birthdays ”” one nicknamed ”˜Rocky’ gets 6 July because it’s Sylvester Stallone’s.

The genocide’s longer-term consequences can be surprising: because so many men were killed, Rwanda ended up as the first country in the world whose parliament contained a majority of women. The book is good on culture shock; accustomed to packed local buses (known as twegerane, ”˜let’s stick together’), when the Rwandans visit America they all squeeze onto one row of a spacious people-carrier. In South Africa Adrien is confronted by his first ever bedsheets; he sleeps on top of them, afraid to cause a mess. Culture shock isn’t a one-way street, though: the Rwandans are amazed that the Americans keep animals in their homes.

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But what do you remember?

Throngs of flag-waving, chanting, cheering, singing, praying, young people extending for as far as the eye can see? A motorcade moving slowly through a vibrating, pulsating mass of humanity while a smiling Pope gestures, waves, and dispenses blessings to left and right? All this against one of the most breathtakingly beautiful natural backdrops in the world: the beach of Copacabana and the mountain of Corcovado. And of course you remember the babies ”“ babies and more babies, being kissed and cuddled and caressed by the Pope. But maybe you were paying particular attention and you also recall a visit to a slum and a hospital and a meeting with young prisoners and a prayer vigil and a papal pilgrimage to a Marian shrine”¦
But do you remember what he said?

“Promote justice and dialogue to hear the cry of the poor”, “Serve the community and a culture of encounter”, “Christ shares the crosses we carry in our lives”, “Is ours a Church that can still warm hearts?”, “Grandparents are important: the aged and the young build the future together”, “Faith isn’t a fruit-salad: don’t water it down”, “The Church is close to those suffering from addictions”, “Christian hope means being surprised by God”, “We cannot be part of a throwaway culture”, “Ours is a revolutionary Faith”, “Those who don’t go to Church are the VIP’s invited to the Lord’s table”, “We must learn how to embrace those in need”, “Jesus asks us to play on his team””¦

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In a statement read out on South Sudanese television on July 23rd, President Salva Kiir, a former guerrilla commander with a penchant for cowboy hats, dissolved his cabinet, fired his vice-president and deposed the chairman of the ruling party. This comes only a fortnight after the country’s second birthday, which was overshadowed by an open letter from Western backers bemoaning corruption and human-rights abuses and warning that the country is veering off course. Meanwhile, a row with Sudan has halted oil production, which funds most of Mr Kiir’s budget. The north accuses him of supporting rebels inside its territory, a charge he denies.

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The second attitude: openness to being surprised by God. Anyone who is a man or a woman of hope – the great hope which faith gives us – knows that even in the midst of difficulties God acts and he surprises us. The history of this Shrine is a good example: three fishermen, after a day of catching no fish, found something unexpected in the waters of the Parnaíba River: an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Whoever would have thought that the site of a fruitless fishing expedition would become the place where all Brazilians can feel that they are children of one Mother? God always surprises us, like the new wine in the Gospel we have just heard. God always saves the best for us. But he asks us to let ourselves be surprised by his love, to accept his surprises. Let us trust God! Cut off from him, the wine of joy, the wine of hope, runs out. If we draw near to him, if we stay with him, what seems to be cold water, difficulty, sin, is changed into the new wine of friendship with him.

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