The Archbishop of Wales is urging officials to be open to “significant change” ahead of a large-scale review.
Dr Barry Morgan said the Church in Wales must adapt to cope with the decline in clergy, waning investments and falling congregations.
Three independent experts are to assess its use of buildings and financial resources.
The church’s organisational structure could also change, he warned.
An intensely toxic court case which shattered Japanese society, ended today with a 30-month prison sentence for a man who was once the country’s most prominent entrepreneur….
Mr [Takafumi] Horie’s eradication as a political and corporate trailblazer also marked the beginning of the end of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s supposedly reformist era.
It was a five-and-a-half year stint in which the charismatic politician persuaded both Japan and the outside world that he had placed the country on a new tack. Retrospective analysis of his period in power suggest his practical impact had been almost entirely undone by about 2009.
Archbishop Maurico José Araújo de Andrade is a genial huggy-bear of a man who has been called to the helm of the Episcopal Church of Brazil in uncertain times.
Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest country, both by mass (8.5 million square miles) and population (more than 200 million people). Most Brazilians call themselves Roman Catholic, but these days Pentecostals worship in about equal numbers. The presence of high-profile Pentecostals on the national football team is just one sign that the star of Pentecostalism continues to rise.
Roman Catholic parishes in Brazil are large, plentiful and highly visible. Most stay open all the time. Dotted all over cities and towns are tiny chapels of various Pentecostal affiliations. In the daytime they tend to be shuttered, but they come alive at night as people punctuate boisterous sermons with amens and pray fervently for promised material blessings.
‘Aggressive secularism’ is destroying Britain’s Christian heritage and culture, a leader of the Catholic Church has warned.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has urged members of the faith to unite against an assault on their values.
In a vehement attack on secularism during his Easter sermon he said Christians are being ‘marginalised’ in society and banned from acting on their beliefs.R
[Shusaku] Endo locates the point of contact between Japanese life and the Gospel in what he observes, and has experienced personally, to be the essence of Japanese religious awareness. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person’s life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are intelligible only in the experience of their opposites. Endo sees them incarnate in the person of Jesus through his own experience of failure, rejection, and, most of all, ineffectualness. Only rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and find understanding and compassion. Endo argues that it is our universal human experience of failure in life that provides us with an understanding of Christian faith in its depth.
–Fumitaka Matsuoka, The Christology of Shusaku Endo, Theology Today (October 1982) [emphasis mine]
The newly-appointed Archbishop of Cardiff spoke today of the “gracious” and “understanding” approach of the Church of England as around 900 former Anglicans in England and Wales prepare to be received this Easter into a special grouping within the Catholic Church.
The Rt Rev George Stack, who is to take up the most senior role in the Roman Catholic Church in Wales, said the personal ordinariate had allowed former Anglicans to join the Catholic Church as a group and maintain their identity.
“I think mainstream Anglicans recognise that there are people who feel that they must make this journey and I must say, I think they have dealt with it very, very well,” the Rt Rev Stack said.
Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan has given his support to a growing move to give royal daughters equal rights to succeed to the throne as their brothers.
Dr Morgan is the latest senior UK figure to call for the rule, which stops the eldest daughter of a monarch from inheriting the British throne if she has a younger brother, to be scrapped.
The Anglican leader considers it absurd the present Queen would never have been crowned if she had a brother.
Soldiers patrolled the streets in Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and aid workers began to assess the toll from deadly rioting against President Goodluck Jonathan’s election victory.
The Red Cross said many people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced in protests across northern Nigeria on Monday by supporters of Jonathan’s northern rival, former army ruler Muhammadu Buhari, who say the election result was rigged.
Churches, homes and shops were razed.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has appealed for an end to “unnecessary and avoidable” post-election violence across the north of the country.
Incumbent Mr Jonathan has been declared winner in the presidential poll, with the electoral commission saying he received about 57% of the vote.
Rioting spread across the Muslim north – the opposition’s powerbase – as the outcome became clear.
Tens of millions of Nigerians have taken part in Africa’s biggest presidential election, amid hopes of the most credible poll in two decades.
Votes are already being counted in parts of the country, with official results expected on Monday.
Voting is reported to have generally gone smoothly, despite some reports of fraud and incidents of violence.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s main challenger is Muhammadu Buhari, an ex-military leader popular in the north.
The overall impact of earthquake and tsunami according to the government has been:
Death: about 13,200 people
Missing: about 14,300 people
Displaced: about 167,000 people
Totally demolished homes: 52,800 homes
Most damage has been caused by the tsunami rather than earthquake itself. In addition we are facing the potential impact of nuclear radiation caused by malfunction of the nuclear power plant. We are experiencing many aftershocks with some of them causing more damage to already weakened structures.
The Archbishop of the province of Jos, Dr Benjamin Kwashi, said that “solidarity” with Christians in Nigeria, who have been subjected to violence in recent years, “is missing” from the wider Anglican CommunÂion.
Speaking in London on Thursday of last week, during his two-week visit to the UK, Dr Kwashi said that the Primate of Nigeria, the Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, had “shown deep interest and concern over the situation in Jos”. The Primate had “not only visited but . . . made rehabilitation possible for some of the displaced and suffering people.
“Unfortunately, you can’t say the same thing for the rest of the Anglican Communion,” Dr Kwashi went on. “We do get letters and encourageÂment, which is wonderful . . . but the solidarity is missing.”
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy.
Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.
What was needed, they said in a statement, was “a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty” — thinly veiled criticism of what the BRICS see as Washington’s neglect of its global monetary responsibilities.
Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of their nuclear crisis to the highest level, seven.
The decision reflects the total release of radiation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which is ongoing, rather than a sudden deterioration.
Level seven previously only applied to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where 10 times as much radiation was emitted.
Four birdies in a row to close it. Wow.
Leaders have been told to stop politicising the Ocampo Six trials and warned against public utterances likely to rekindle violence in the country.
Anglican Church Archbishop Eliud Wabukala on Sunday told a congregation at the All Saints Cathedral that inflammatory statements could lead to anarchy as Education minister Sam Ongeri warned against hate speech.
“The Ocampo Six and ICC trials should not be politicised. This is a foundation for chaos in the General Election,” Dr Wabukala warned.
Muslim leaders in Kenya are calling for government action on Christian schools which have banned students from wearing the hijab, the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim girls and women – writes Frederick Nzwili.
Church leaders have defended the ban, saying head teachers have the right to determine dress code in the schools, according to a denomination’s religious traditions, discipline and philosophies.
“The problem has been with us for some time. In our private schools, we do not encourage or allow hijab. We insist the children have to be children just like the others. These are our laid-down procedures,” Roman Archbishop Boniface Lele of Mombasa told ENInews on 6 April 2011, six days after the Muslim leaders issued the demand in the coastal city.
At the tender age of just 21, Rory McIlroy stands on the brink of golfing immortality after another nerveless display at the US Masters in Augusta. At 12 under par, McIlroy will take a four shot lead into the final round later today.
Even with Tiger Woods unable to mount the charge he was looking for and defending champion Phil Mickelson remaining in the pack, McIlroy found it tough going for much of the third round.
But then, as the sun went down, the Holywood wonder kid regained control of the season’s opening major in thrilling fashion. After finding the green and two-putting the 13th and 15th, the two par fives on the back nine, McIlroy gave his biggest fist-pump of the week when he rolled in a 25-footer at the 17th.
With great sadness we have been witnessing a day of tragedy in a school environment, at Tasso da Silveira elementary school, in Rio de Janeiro.
It is time for us to discuss our security system, especially the security in our public schools. It was a beautiful day, which looked like a normal day, just one more day of school for so many young students of Tasso da Silveira elementary, in Rio de Janeiro.
Marriage rates in England and Wales are at their lowest since records began, new statistics show.
Just 21.3 out of every 1,000 males aged 16 plus were married in 2009, down from a rate of 22.0 in 2008, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The proportion of women aged 16 plus who were married fell from 19.9 in 2008 to 19.2 in 2009.
The rates were the lowest since calculations of rates began in 1862.
The census looms and included in it we have Question 12, which deals with religion. “What is your religion?” it asks boldly, assuming everyone has one. It lists the options: Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Islam, Presbyterian, Orthodox; it then gives a space, two rows of boxes, for “Other, write in your religion.” Then, under these two rows of boxes, comes option 7: “No religion.”
One would have thought a more sensible way of framing the question might have been to start by asking: “Do you have a religion?” This could have been followed by a number of options for those marking the Yes box whereas those opting for No would go straight to the next question. But this suggestion, made by the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) following an invitation by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for suggestions regarding possible improvements in the census, was rejected on the basis it would make historical comparisons difficult. This must certainly mean not many suggestions would be adopted.
Two weeks have passed since the devastating earthquake on the 11th March. At least I have been able to visit the devastated area in Sendai. The night of the 26th March I flew from Tokyo to Yamagata Airport. The next morning I entered Sendai City. Sendai is the main city of the Tohoku region where the Cathedral of Tohoku Diocese of Nippon Sei Ko Kai (the Anglican Church in Japan) is located.
On Sunday morning, I visited the Cathedral (Sendai Christ Church) and saw that parts of the walls had fallen down, the walls were cracked. It looked to me as the whole building was lopsided. On the floor of the Cathedral there were various piles of goods sent from churches in different parts of Japan such as foodstuff, fuel and clothing. Because of the frequent aftershocks, the church council members have decided that it is too dangerous to use the Cathedral for worship, so they are having services in the nearby church hall.
In Sendai City they have restored water and electricity supplies, but the supply of gas to houses has not been restored. Although food is available it is still very difficult to get hold of petrol and other fuel. So some of the parishioners who gathered for worship on the Sunday walked a long distance to get there. Due to the continuing aftershocks, some people go to bed fully clothed, wearing shoes. There are those who have not slept at all since the earthquake and look exhausted. The Bishop of Tohoku Hiromichi Kato who preached at eucharist, he tried to encourage the congregation by saying that their faith would lead them to hope even through the hardship and difficulties of the present situation.
Anglican leaders have condemned the act of burning of the Qur’an on March 20 in Florida, United States. Bishop Alexander Malik of the Diocese of Lahore, Pakistan, said that “Such acts were in flagrant contradiction to the teaching of Christianity”¦ They were the manifestations of sick minds busy in spreading hatred, bigotry and unease in society.”
In Peshawar, Pakistan, Bishop Humphrey Peters noted that this was a “shameful act” performed “only to gain cheap popularity”. Bishop Peters was speaking at a press conference alongside members of a Peshawar based inter faith group ”˜Faith Friends’ at which colleagues from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities also expressed their anger at the action.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives lost power in their German heartland after nearly six decades, initial poll results showed Sunday, with the Greens likely to lead their first state government.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have ruled Baden-Wuerttemberg since 1953, but anger over her nuclear policy in light of the Japan crisis as well as decisions on Libya and the euro drove away voters in the run-up to the poll.
The anti-nuclear Greens claimed about 24 percent of the vote — about 12 point higher than five years ago — and were likely to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, who garnered about 23 percent in the rich state.
The American strategy for handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government rests on a similar strategy: putting local militias on the government payroll. Such “recruits” are supposed to be vetted. But in the months it will take to complete that process, American commanders are counting on ragtag militias like Rozeboi’s to fight the Taliban.
Many of the militias are controlled by strongmen who traffic in drugs and weapons and pay their soldiers by taxing the locals, as the Taliban do. Indeed, several militias in Kunduz fought alongside the Taliban before switching to the government’s side.
Can the Karzai government provide the food, clothing and salaries needed to keep those militias friendly? “If they do not have income, they will return to their old bosses,” the mayor of Imam Sahib, Sufi Manaan, warned American officers in February. He should know. Some American commanders believe that he has links to a militia that fought against their soldiers last fall.
Dr. Paul Bhatti, elder brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, the slain federal minister for minority affairs in Pakistan, has expressed his “grave concern” over the probe into the murder of his brother.
Dr. Bhatti, the newly elected Chairman for the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), said, “Three weeks have been passed, but nothing has been shared with the nation and mourning minorities in Pakistan. No replacement has been announced yet in the National Assembly after the martyrdom of Mr. Bhatti.”
Dr. Bhatti has demanded that government of Pakistan establish a “judicial commission” to probe his brother’s murder which took place at the start of this month.
The Japanese electricians who bravely strung wires this week to all six reactor buildings at a stricken nuclear power plant succeeded despite waves of heat and blasts of radioactive steam.
The restoration of electricity at the plant, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, stirred hopes that the crisis was ebbing. But nuclear engineers say some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks are still ahead ”” and time is not necessarily on the side of the repair teams.
The tasks include manually draining hundreds of gallons of radioactive water and venting radioactive gas from the pumps and piping of the emergency cooling systems, which are located diagonally underneath the overheated reactor vessels. The urgency of halting the spread of radioactive contamination from the site was underlined on Wednesday by the health warning that infants should not drink tap water ”” even in Tokyo, 140 miles southwest of the stricken plant ”” which raised alarms about extensive contamination.
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
Hundreds of people at a Vancouver church offered prayers and donations Sunday for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, as they were told not even religion could explain the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen the east Asian country.
The 130-year-old Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver held a service Sunday afternoon that alternated between English and Japanese, bringing together Japanese-Canadians, members of other local Anglican congregations and people from outside the faith — many still coming to grips with the devastation unfolding across the Pacific.
The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami have together killed at least 8,600 people, with nearly 13,000 still missing and another 452,000 living in shelters. They have also sparked a continuing crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which has been leaking radiation since the natural disasters.
In response to a growing desire to donate as well as pray for the beleaguered nation of Japan, agencies and Churches of the Communion have been setting up avenues for giving.