Perched on a hill overlooking the countryside, a little historic church is going green in a unique way.

The cemetery at St. James Anglican Church is poised to offer green burials in the community thanks to the efforts of parishioner Gerald Beavan, 78. Mr. Beavan, who came to Canada from England in 1974, said his grandparents were buried in simple pine boxes without all the additions of modern funerals. He wants to offer that simple, environmentally friendly type of burial to a community he has called home since 1978. He came up with the idea to create a place in the church’s cemetery for green burials about five years ago, he said.

“The idea is you go back to the old way of burial,” said Mr. Beavan.

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In 1999, after receiving allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in his province, Lord Hope, then Archbishop of York, wrote a letter of apology, aware that “this whole business will have caused you deep disquiet and distress and a considerable degree of sadness and pain.”

The letter was sent not to the survivor, but to the abusive priest. On Wednesday, it was published as part of a strongly critical report on the Church’s response to allegations of abuse against the priest, the former Dean of Manchester, the late Robert Waddington. It details how the failure to implement policies meant that victims were denied an opportunity to see their abuser brought to justice.

The report is the result of an inquiry commissioned last year by the present Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, after a joint investigation by The Times in London and The Australian newspaper in Sydney had revealed allegations against Waddington dating back decades.

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The Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu has apologised to victims of sexual abuse by a former cathedral dean.

Dr Sentamu was responding to a report into how abuse allegations against the Very Rev Robert Waddington, formerly dean of Manchester, were handled.

His predecessor was criticised for not acting on allegations in the report, which found “systemic failures” within the Church of England.

At least two men made claims of abuse in 1999 and at sometime in 2003-04.

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An open letter to Bishop Jonathan Baker from a concerned Anglo-Catholic priest.

20 October 2014
Dear Bishop Jonathan,

The Roman Catholic Church has, at its recent Extraordinary Synod on the Family, shown its determination to uphold its traditional understanding of the sanctity of marriage. In the light of recent events it is far from clear where the leadership of Forward in Faith stands on this key matter of Christian faith and practice.

With the proposals for provision for those unable to receive the ministry of women bishops, Anglican Catholics have, it seems, a chance to remain in the Church of England with integrity. But Catholic integrity is not separable from Catholic moral teaching and discipline, and the question of the viability of a continued Catholic presence within the Church of England affiliated to Forward in Faith and the College of Bishops of The Society under the patronage of St Wilfrid and St Hilda is now very acute.
I am deeply disappointed that, as Acting Editor of Forward in Faith’s journal New Directions, you have not allowed me to respond, in time for next month’s National Assembly, to Canon Nicholas Turner’s criticisms of my article ”˜Stewards of Mysteries’ in his ”˜Pro-gay and Pro-matrimony’ (New Directions June). This was subtitled ”˜Nicholas Turner was disturbed by Stephen Keeble’s article and continues to support the Bishops of The Society’. A right of reply is a recognised courtesy. As you know, the text of a response to Nicholas Turner had, after some discussion, been agreed for the July issue between myself and the then Editor Fr Philip Corbett. I was both surprised and puzzled when, without explanation, this did not appear.

Moreover, in July, when the General Synod was passing the legislation introducing women bishops, photographs of Forward in Faith’s Vice-Chairman Dr Lindsay Newcombe at this year’s LGBT ”˜Pride’ festival in London, sporting a ”˜Pride’ sticker, were circulating on the internet with predictably adverse reactions from orthodox Anglicans around the world. This, together with Nicholas Turner’s apparent free rein in New Directions and your unexplained endorsement of the Pilling Report ”“ albeit not in your capacity as Chairman of Forward in Faith ”“ appears to have given rise to the opening words of Forward in Faith, North America’s statement of 18 July: ”˜In the light of recent events in the Church of England and reports regarding Forward in Faith (UK) ”¦’.
…………………..
Forward in Faith, North America, however, maintains an intelligible, biblical and Catholic position:

Under the authority of holy scripture and tradition of the church, we affirm that sexual activity can only properly take place within the context of holy matrimony between a man and woman. We affirm that any other type of sexual relationship is sinful regardless of context or degree of fidelity, and that the church cannot bless any type of sexual relationship outside of holy matrimony between a man and woman.

I have twice asked you to publish unabridged in New Directions the important statement from Forward in Faith, North America. It comes from faithful Anglo-Catholics who have been willing to suffer for their faith ”“ to the extent of exclusion from their former churches in the United States and Canada. My requests to make the statement available to New Directions readers have been ignored even though the stance of our sister organisation is fully in accord with the Agreed Statement on Communion of 1994, which has a key constitutional role in defining the Objects of Forward in Faith (UK).

The Preamble of the Agreed Statement on Communion says:

We want a Catholic understanding of faith and morals, and the practice of Catholic sacramental discipline to flourish in our Church, for we are convinced that they are essential features in the presentation of the gospel to our nation. Remove these elements and our Church’s witness will be greatly impoverished and weakened.

These elements, following the eclipse of classical Anglican theology which sustained them, are disappearing in the Church of England. But it is the duty of orthodox Anglo-Catholics, and a constitutional duty of the leadership of Forward in Faith, to maintain their combined sanctifying grace. Without both, the substantive legacy of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England will be gone. Would readers of New Directions be allowed to notice?

Read it all and for the background to this see here and here

With all Canadians my heart is very heavy with the news of the killing of a Canadian soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, while on honour guard duty at the National War Memorial in Ottawa today.

This follows all too soon on the killing of another member of the Canadian Armed Forces in Quebec, Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, just days ago.

I ask your prayers for these men, for their loved ones stricken with grief, and for the Canadian Armed Forces chaplains who are ministering to them.

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Packer came from a lower middle-class background and a nominal Anglican family that went to St Catharine’s Church in Gloucester but never talked about the things of God or even prayed at meals. As a teenager Packer had read a couple of the new books coming out by C. S. Lewis (fellow and tutor in English literature at Oxford’s Magdalen College), including The Screwtape Letters (1942) and the three BBC talks turned pamphlets that would later become Mere Christianity (1942-44). During chess matches with a high school classmate””the son of a Unitarian minister””he had defended Christianity.

Packer thought of himself as a Christian. But the events of that evening would convince him otherwise.

On this cool autumn evening, he made his way west across Oxford, past Pembroke College, and into St Aldate’s Church, where the Christian Union occasionally held services. The lights in the building were dimmed so that the light emanating from the building would be no brighter than moonlight””a recent relaxation of England’s “blackout” regulations to avoid air-raid attacks in World War II.

He entered the doors of the church a dead man walking and was to leave later that night as a resurrected man, knowing himself to belong to Christ.

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Interviewed in 1979 when his father Robert Runcie was announced as the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury, James Runcie, then a 20-year-old Cambridge student, told a reporter he wasn’t terribly certain about things of faith. In the years that followed, almost imperceptibly, that started to change. Towards the end of his time at Canterbury the elder Runcie hinted as much. “For our children growing up, music was compulsory, religion was optional.” Now, he said, both his offspring seemed much “more interested” in the latter.

Religion and faith are at the fore in James Runcie’s Grantchester, which premiered on ITV October 6. His fourth novel in the series is due for publication next May. The chief character is a clergyman-cum-sleuth Canon Sidney Chambers (James Norton), whom Runcie cheerfully admits is a loosely based on his late father.

James Runcie builds in characters bearing associations with family and friends. Sidney is named after Sidney Smith, one of his father’s favourite vicars. In the first of the series Chambers is intrigued by a piano-playing German woman who loves Bach (James Runcie’s mother, Lindy, was a piano teacher). “I didn’t intend them to be a fictionalised, alternative biography of my father ”” and I still hope they aren’t ”” but one cannot easily escape a strong paternal influence.”

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Letting go so that we can be transformed is the hardest thing. Yet the possibility of inner change, of transformation of our lives and of our society, requires us to let go in order to receive from God, through Jesus Christ, all that He offers. While our hands are closed clinging to what we currently have, we cannot receive what He is going to give us. Bishops must not only be those who themselves let go distinctively and decisively, but also those who open the way for communities to come into the new life that God is offering.

A bishop is not a senior manager in a convenient administrative unit for putting together administration, payroll, and deployment of staff to necessary outlets. A bishop is above all a shepherd, carrying their pastoral staff, and like Middle Eastern shepherds generally leading the sheep. This is where the image breaks down a bit, because the people of God are not sheep to be herded, but individuals of infinite value to be loved, encouraged, liberated and empowered, themselves to be witnesses to those who do not know Jesus Christ, and to be themselvesshepherds wherever God has called them.

But for all that to happen, there has to be a letting go.

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A bishop has warned the Church of England must make wholesale change to halt the slide in attendance, or wither away in the 21st century.

Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, said he feared unless the Church reinvented itself in his own diocese, it would disappear like the region’s textile industry.

The warning from Bishop Henderson follows similar concerns from colleagues around the country that urgent action is needed to prevent dwindling numbers heralding the end of the Church.

Bishop Henderson made the warning as he launched a 12-year-plan to attract younger people to the Church.

Read it all from the Telegraph.

#OTD1914 first Bishops' meeting since #WW1 began held at LambethPalace. Agenda contained 11 items relating to the war pic.twitter.com/OPz1pvdpmD

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) October 20, 2014

It has been revealed that the Anglican Development Fund (Bathurst Diocese) owes approximately $39.3 million to its creditors.

Joint and several receivers and managers of the Anglican Development Fund (Bathurst Diocese), McGrathNicol partners Joseph Hayes and Barry Kogan, have taken some of the assets of the Anglican Development Fund and made initial payments to creditors.

A spokesperson for McGrathNicol said that as a result of further recoveries, notice of intention to declare a second distribution was advertised on October 8.

He said the Anglican Development Fund acted primarily as a financial intermediary.

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A dual Olympian with a strong focus on practical social justice and working with youth will be the new Anglican Dean of Perth.

The appointment of Very Rev. Richard Pengelley, 54, as Dean of St George’s Cathedral was announced yesterday.

Mr Pengelley will replace Dr John Shepherd, who recently retired after 24 years as dean.

Archbishop Roger Herft said Mr Pengelley’s qualities included focus on disciplined prayer, inspiring worship and willing service for others.

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I’ve always felt sympathetic to foreigners on holiday in England who come across a church advertising Mass and displaying crucifixes and statues inside. When they discover later that they have been at a service of the Church of England, not of the Roman Catholic Church, they are puzzled and confused.

So what would you think if you went into a church and heard the clergyman begin: “God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit”¦”?

If you said it was an early part of the Anglican service of Holy Communion, you’d be right. But I’ve just been looking at a new service booklet with the Order of Mass according to the Use of the Ordinariate. It begins with that prayer, yet it is a Roman Catholic liturgy. Instead of bells-and-smells Anglicans stealing the Catholics’ clothes, as it were, we have Catholics (Roman Catholics) cannibalising the Book of Common Prayer

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The tiny parish of St. George’s, Clarenceville, Que. is preparing for the 200th anniversary of its church building in 2018 by doing some restoration work.

Erected between 1818 and 1820, the church is the oldest wooden church in Quebec, but the Rev. Thora Chadwick, who serves as the rector in a three-point parish with two nearby other churches, said the wood on the exterior of the building is in very bad shape and is in need of some urgent restoration. “The paint has been peeling…. Because [the church] was registered as historic, it couldn’t just be painted, and each winter that goes by makes the problem much worse.”

The cost of restoring the foundation and exterior is estimated to be about $300,000. Fortunately, the Quebec government has approved a grant to cover 70% of the costs. Work on the foundation, which cost more than $100,000, has already been completed, using some funds from a trust fund with money remaining from the sale of the rectory in Clarenceville. The next phase of the government grant will cover $138,000, leaving the parish to find funding for the remainder.

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A call to reflect, pray and take action on child poverty, from the bishops of the Anglican Church.

In a new booklet, they’re asking Anglicans to keep up the focus on child poverty, even with the election done and dusted.

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The Anglican Church in Adelaide has backed an earlier move by the church nationally to let its priests break the confidentiality of confessions.

Earlier this year, the national synod met in Adelaide and voted for an historic change to let priests ignore the privacy of the confessional in cases of serious crimes, such as child abuse.

That national meeting said it would be up to individual dioceses to adopt the policy, a vote the Adelaide diocese has taken this weekend.

Read it all.

Check them both out and see what you think.

The Bishop of Truro has called for a ‘major cultural change’ in British society to recognise the need for justice for all – in particular young carers, those who use food banks and families living in poverty.

The Rt Revd Tim Thornton warned against an ‘us and them’ approach to social justice, calling instead for a greater sense of the ‘glue’ in society, or interdependence, that holds together people regardless of economic status.

“Social justice assumes, surely, that there is such a thing called society in which a key value is justice, and implicit in that, is that it is justice for all people in our country,” he told a House of Lords debate on social justice.

“I suggest that there is clear evidence that our society is struggling to understand itself as a society today and there is not enough evidence on the value of justice for all people, for all members of our society.”

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The House of Lords passed the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure on Tuesday night.

The vote followed a debate in which Baroness Perry praised the “immense patience” of Church of England women clergy, the Archbishop of Canterbury emphasised the need to remain a “broad Church”, and Lord Cormack welcomed the provision for traditionalists.

Lady Perry said that women clergy had been snubbed by male colleagues and criticised “because their high-heels clonked”, and it had been “infinitely humiliating” to see the Church “reject the potential of those wonderful women within it”. One “very senior” woman had found that male colleagues failed to invite her to important meetings. Yet such women remained “patient and conciliatory”.

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Here is a thesis: that the dynamic “x-factor,” the key to the upsurge of Anglican mission in the modern era, and its common feature still today, may be found in the lineage of Wesleyanism. Wesley’s ministry had a shape that has been repeated and reappropriated over and over again. In mission, we are all Methodists now, at least in our root assumptions and many of our strategies. To understand what I mean, we need to consider the particular pattern of Methodist mission and ministry. It was focused on inwardness, conversion, the heart, and yet it was lived out in small groups, “class meetings,” in which the converted held each other to account. In those groups members could confess their failings, be exhorted and encouraged by their peers, and pray for one another. The leaders and the impetus were lay.

The gospel has to be presented to all so as to be received freely in faith. It sounds simple, but with Wesley this reality came to the fore anew. Thus he felt impelled to go to those who had not heard. Shockingly for this time, he went to the openings of mines to preach to the miners at dawn. The sermons were in fact long, dry, and learned, and yet their effect was electric. His earnestness and willingness to go out to people were paramount.

Soon there were numerous converts, and as a result services were held in the open air, where they would sing. Methodism was in large measure a musical movement. Many of the hymns by the Wesley brothers were for devotions preparatory to Holy Communion, or as the congregation waited while the long lines went up for the sacrament. The movement was at once deeply evangelical and eucharistic. And it had spinoffs: lives of the converted changed, drinking was curtailed, family life improved, trades were learned, and money was saved. Social change and conversion were intertwined.

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The Sudanese Air Force dropped four bombs on an Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) complex in the Nuba Mountains on Friday (Oct. 10), church leaders said.

“The bombs have completely destroyed our church compound in Tabolo,” the Rev. Youhana Yaqoub of the ECS in Al Atmor, near the Tabolo area in South Kordofan state, told Morning Star News. “A family living at the church compound miraculously escaped the attack, although their whole house and property were destroyed.”

Kamal Adam and his family thanked God for their safety as they watched their house burn from the bombing, he said.

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Although Hansard now records the ABC’s response to Lady Howe’s Q4, in view of the nature of the debate[1] and his non-governmental position, such assurances carry different weight from those made by a government minister at the dispatch box and subsequently relied upon under Pepper v Hart.

With regard to the application of the Equality Act, the Archbishop’s specification of “parochial appointments” implicitly acknowledges that the House of Bishops considers other appointments differently, i.e. hospital chaplains. With regard to remarriage after divorce, this dispensation is not strictly within the gift of the bishops, as clergy are provided a “conscience clause” directly through s8(2) Matrimonial Causes Act 1965.

On Monday 20 October, the House of Commons will consider the Motion: “To approve a Church of England Measure relating to women bishops”. Following the expected vote in favour, the Measure will be presented to the monarch for Royal Assent after which it becomes part of the law of the land.

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Among the 253 participants in the Synod on the Family which will conclude here in the Vatican on Sunday are eight delegates from different Christian Churches who are sharing insights from their own communities and traditions. Among them is the Anglican Bishop of Durham Paul Butler who has specialised in children and family ministry within the Church of England. As a husband and father of four children, Bishop Butler also brought his own experience to the Synod and especially to those working in one of the English language groups this week.

Bishop Butler sat down with Philippa Hitchen to talk about his impressions of the two-week meeting and about the struggle within the Anglican world of reaching out to people in same-sex relationships while upholding the Church’s teaching on marriage and family life

Read and listen to it all (about 8 1/3 minutes).

At its heart seeking to be mission-shaped is about the truth that the Good News of Christ is as necessary for the people who are not in our churches, or any church, as it is for those who freely acknowledge Jesus as the Lord of their life. It is to believe that God intends the renewed relationship that is made possible through Jesus to be available to people everywhere….

Becoming more attuned to our mission as God’s people is not just a matter for our leaders, or for those specially charged and equipped to the various callings. It is a matter for all of us, all Anglicans in every parish. We together are the body and as St Paul tells us, God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. To paraphrase Bishop Tom Wright, the beatitudes are the agenda for the Kingdom people Jesus hascalled together as his church; or to quote him: “They are about the way in which Jesus wants to rule the world. He wants to do it through this sort of people.”

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The Church of England is being urged to pray for victims of human trafficking at services this Sunday.

Freedom Sunday, a global day of prayer, action and worship backed by major Christian denominations in Britain, takes place on October 19.

Organisers have produced a set of resources for churches with prayers, Bible studies, reflections, case studies and sermon notes to help mark the day.

In a foreword to the resources, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, warns that human trafficking is a “grave crime” against humanity.

“It is a form of modern day slavery and a profound violation of the intrinsic dignity of human beings,” he wrote.

“It is intolerable that millions of fellow human beings should be violated in this way, subjected to inhuman exploitation and deprived of their dignity and rights.”

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Allowing women to become bishops is “long overdue”, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said, as the change was approved by the Lords.

Peers accepted the General Synod proposal, passed by the Synod in July, without a vote.

It is expected to be approved by MPs next week, allowing it to become law.

Speaking in the Lords, the archbishop urged the government to bring in legislation to allow women bishops to join him in the upper house.

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For many people within the Church of England and others it has been a process full of frustration when looked at from the outside; and it has been somewhat baffling, particularly in recent years, that something which seems so simple and obvious should have become such a considerable problem. After all, surely the big step was taken in the early 1990s with the admission of women to the priesthood ”“ and that indeed is true theologically and psychologically. What matters to most people in the church is who the vicar is.

Nevertheless, the Church of England at the Reformation did not opt for a system of congregational or Presbyterian governance. We remained, like the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions, an episcopal church where bishops are the leaders in mission and ministry; give authority to others as ordained ministers of the Gospel through the laying on of hands; and above all are the focus of unity ”“ and that is very relevant to the structure of this Measure.

It is because bishops are at the heart of Anglican polity ”“ indeed are included in the Lambeth-Chicago Quadrilateral as one of the four defining features of Anglicanism ”“ that the process of securing agreement to this legislation has been so long and difficult.

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The leader of the Church of England has spoken of his plan for Britain’s “ambitious” young bankers to give up work for a year and join a “quasi-monastic community” so they can learn about ethics ahead of entering the City.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has called on some of the UK’s brightest and most ambitious young bankers to quit work temporarily so they can pray and serve the poor.

He said he believed their natural ambition would encourage them to join his Godly community.

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If Christians are to accept…so-called [same-sex] marriage, they must accept that our liturgies and our services, our pastors and priests, our forefathers and foremothers have been for centuries wrong about the meaning of marriage. What they heard, what the pastor read, what their grandparents knew to be true was wrong as rain. And not just a little wrong, but fundamentally mistaken about the most essential elements of marriage. If… [same-sex] marriage is right, then there is almost nothing in the old Book of Common Prayer that is right.

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