The Right Rev. Robert Bennett was elected on the second ballot to be the 12th bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron Saturday.
Bennett was chosen from a slate of six candidates, including the Venerable Richard Salt, Rector of Trinity church in Sarnia and Archdeacon of Lambton/Kent.
He becomes the representatives of Anglican parishes from Windsor to Kitchener to Tobermory at a time when the church faces several critical decisions.
Church attendance in England has continued to fall, according to the latest Church of England statistics, but donations to the Church are increasing and the numbers of new clergy have increased.
Church Statistics 2006/7 showed that the attendance of weekly congregations were down one per cent, but found that Christmas and Easter congregations had increased by seven and five per cent respectively.
A 15 per cent increase in new clergy meant the Church ordained 552 people in 2007, the highest number since the year 2000. Last year 290 men and 262 women were ordained, although 52 per cent of them were ordained to non-stipendiary ministry. Of those ordained to full-time, stipendiary ministry, 162 were men and 102 were women.
A quarter of America’s bishops have said that the most important issue for voters in the forthcoming presidential election is abortion – comments that may help boost the fortunes of Republican candidate John McCain.
Some 50 out of the nation’s 197 active bishops have published articles or given interviews during the run-up up to the election urging abortion as the key issue on which voters should decide which way to vote.
Senator McCain opposes the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, which legalised abortion in the US, but has refused – most recently, at last week’s final television debate between the presidential candidates – to impose an abortion-based “litmus test” on his Supreme Court nominees. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, has repeatedly indicated his support for the 1973 ruling alongside a pledge to sign a proposed Freedom of Choice Act that would invalidate any state or local ordinance intended to “deny or interfere” with a woman’s choice to have an abortion.
Among the bishops who have intervened is Bishop Robert Hermann of St Louis who last Friday wrote: “the issue of life is the most basic issue and must be given priority over the issue of the economy, the issue of war or any other issue.” His comment came in a column for the archdiocesan newspaper that appeared hours before Mr Obama addressed 100,000 people in the heavily Catholic city.
Friedman’s cheerleading for globalization has brought brickbats not only from economic populists but also from environmentalists, who point out that if China and India raise their per-capita resource consumption to American levels, the world is well and truly doomed. Unsustainable development poses a serious challenge to Friedman’s globalist vision and indeed, an existential dilemma for humanity. Our disasters are no longer local; we’re playing with all the chips now. To his credit, Friedman doesn’t try to dodge or minimize the challenges. The first half or so of the book is a solemn tour of woes: “the growing demand for ever scarcer energy supplies and natural resources; a massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries and their petrodictators; disruptive climate change; energy poverty, which is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-nots; and rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss, as plants and animals go extinct at record rates.”
These metastasizing dangers don’t for a second cause Friedman to question his commitment to globalization. He’s determined to make the project work, and green is the key that he hopes will open the way. Happily, his instincts on green issues turn out to be considerably more reliable than his instincts on foreign policy. In the name of energy independence, a lot of other self-consciously butch new greens support ethanol and other biofuels, which raise the price of food and encourage deforestation, or “clean coal,” which blows the tops off of mountains. Friedman doesn’t fall into those traps. He’s found the right people to talk to, focused on the correct inflection points, and hit on the best answers to the biggest questions.
As angry as many people were about the bailout of Wall Street, something else makes people just about as angry: falling stock prices. It is probably for this reason that Washington decided to take the risk and push one of the more outrageously extravagant spending programs in the history of the world. The benefits of rising stock portfolios are concentrated while the costs of a bailout are diffuse. In the political calculus, then, politicians were betting that they would come out ahead.
What’s really at issue is a deeper problem that is culture-wide: the intolerance toward failure. We can’t face it. It is probably a symptom of the economic boom during which all stocks go up, all bets pay off, all homes rise in value, and everyone is slightly richer today than yesterday and half as rich as tomorrow. You just can’t lose. It was true in Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, and it has been true in the United States for some ten years or more.
This is the mentality that spreads throughout a society in which the drug of loose credit — based not on savings but rather the paper products of a printing press — spreads to every sector. Every investor is an amazing stock picker and every home buyer a financial genius. But the illusions don’t stop there. The ethos of genius inflation permeates everyone and everything, so that there emerges a culture-wide resistance to the very notion that someone might not be up to snuff.
Read it all.They elect their tenth bishop there this week.
A historic church that counted among its members some of Pittsburgh’s key political powerbrokers of the 1800s will be the centerpiece in a battle over property in the Episcopal Diocese.
Until the issue is settled, Trinity Cathedral, Downtown, will attempt to serve two dioceses, something Episcopal Church officials said has never been done before.
Parishes that voted this month to leave the national church and align with another Anglican province and those who chose to remain in the Episcopal Church aren’t rushing to court to divvy up about $43 million in assets, but that day is coming, observers said.
“The position of the national church has been to encourage dioceses to litigate, rather than settle,” said Valerie Munson, assistant director at the Terrence J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy in Minneapolis.
On Saturday, delegates at both conventions noticed old friends were missing — and they felt the loss.
“Certainly, when a loved one dies, you want to move on. Yet it’s hard to transition from a deep relationship when they aren’t there,” said the Rev. Bill Gandenberger, assistant to Bishop John-David Schofield, leader of the breakaway diocese that held its convention in Fresno.
“It takes time. You can’t shake someone out of grief,” Gandenberger said.
Bishop Jerry Lamb, leader of the Episcopal diocese that held its convention in Hanford, said he also felt sorrow. Last week, Lamb began the process to suspend 36 priests and 16 deacons over charges they abandoned the Episcopal Church by taking part in removing the diocese from the Episcopal Church and repudiating the authority of the church.
“There’s a lot of personal sadness and sorrow seeing relationships end,” Lamb said.
Jeffrey Altman will be ordained an Anglican priest today in a ceremony that reflects Central New York’s role in the nationwide growth of a separate Anglican church in the United States.
Altman will lead Sunday services at Westside Anglican Fellowship, a Geddes congregation of about 25 people who began worshipping together after their former congregation, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Syracuse, split from the local Episcopal Diocese. They meet at Syracuse Vineyard Church.
It is one of dozens of breakaway congregations that have started Anglican communities in the five years since the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop….
Gambling, as a key solution to our economic woes might not be as attractive as the pundits are making it seems. The Church, as well as all other civic groups, needs to remain resolute that the gaining of money at all cost is not in the best interest of our county and citizenry.
Money is a moral, material and spiritual issue. Emphasis on any one or two of these issues will lead to a breakdown in the moral and spiritual fabric of the society. There is evidence that the decay is evident elsewhere so there is no need for us to duplicate the problems and failure of others.
The fact that casino and other forms of gambling have been accepted as government policy does not mean the Church will be silent. On the contrary, the Church will continue to echo the words of the council: “The principle involved in gambling and the attitude to life which it inculcates are wrong. It is a selfish something-for-nothing attitude, and it involves a basic misuse of money and personnel.” Sounds familiar in the present climate.
Like most economists, those at the International Monetary Fund are lowering their growth forecasts. The financial turmoil gripping Wall Street will probably spill over onto every other street in America. Most likely, current job losses are only the tip of an ugly iceberg.
But when Olivier Blanchard, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, was asked about the possibility of the world sinking into another Great Depression, he reassuringly replied that the chance was “nearly nil.” He added, “We’ve learned a few things in 80 years.”
Yes, we have. But have we learned what caused the Depression of the 1930s? Most important, have we learned enough to avoid doing the same thing again?
Kendall, Bless you for your work and ministry, but I’m having to take your site out of my news reader and of my bookmarks. The anger of so many commentators has become too much for me, and anger is contagious.
The sheer hatred directed against ++Rowan is especially depressing, at a time when I don’t need anything else Anglican to lower my spirits. I don’t know how we reasserters expect others to be attracted to the Gospel if in “standing firm” for it we exemplify so few of the fruits of the Spirit.
We are going through another one of those cycles again where some commenters are failing to observe the blog guidelines. I know there are stresses in the Anglican Communion and the global economy, and that a major election is roughly a week and a half away. But if you wish to comment could you please–PLEASE–stick to the topic of the thread and keep in mind that what matters is not simply what you say but how you say it. Disagreement–including with yours truly–is fine; I am not running a blog echo chamber here, I expect people to think for themselves and understand I post things I agree with and those I don’t. What I refuse to give up on is the need for courtesy and civility, and with some commenters it is once again falling by the wayside. Thanks–KSH.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
Sydney Synod has overwhelmingly restated its principled support for lay and diaconal administration of the Lord’s Supper.
More significantly – in what supporters said is ‘a great outcome’ for women deacons – the motion also ‘accepts’ the argument that there is no longer any legal impediment to deacons officiating at Holy Communion given the wording of The Ordination Service for Deacons Canon 1985 and the repeal of the 1662 Act of Uniformity by a recent General Synod Canon.
However the motion itself does nothing to change the legal situation.
“We don’t make law or change law in a motion,” said the Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, in moving the motion “we merely express our view.”
A Washington Post poll reported a 10-point lead for the Democratic presidential candidate in 13 key “swing” states 16 days before the election. That candidate was John Kerry. That election year was 2004.
When Election Day 2004 arrived, “exit poll” trends reported to the public before the real polls closed also indicated that Sen. Kerry would win the White House. When the real votes were counted, he lost by more than 3 million votes to President Bush, though it took a relatively slim, 118,775-vote triumph in Ohio for the incumbent to win the Electoral College and keep his job.
So despite Sen. Kerry’s apparent inside track to victory, he was not elected president. And despite the significant edge Barack Obama has held over John McCain in most recent polls, particularly in “swing” states, he hasn’t won the presidency yet.
That’s a critical lesson learned across party lines long before 2004.
“When you hear this message, I will no longer be there,” the voice, characteristically spirited, confident, just a little bit cheeky and familiar to all of France, said on a tape released this week.
The words were those of Sister Emmanuelle, a nun revered for her work with the disenfranchised, especially among the garbage-scavengers of Cairo, and renowned for her television appearances in France as an advocate for the poor. She died Monday at a retirement home operated by her order, the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Sion, in Callian, in the south of France.
She was immediately praised by the Vatican, her work and achievement likened to those of Mother Teresa. A spokeswoman for her charitable organization, the Sister Emmanuelle Association, confirmed the death. She was 99 and would have turned 100 next month.
For much of the past year the fast-growing economies of the emerging world watched the Western financial hurricane from afar. Their own banks held few of the mortgage-based assets that undid the rich world’s financial firms. Commodity exporters were thriving, thanks to high prices for raw materials. China’s economic juggernaut powered on. And, from Budapest to BrasÃlia, an abundance of credit fuelled domestic demand. Even as talk mounted of the rich world suffering its worst financial collapse since the Depression, emerging economies seemed a long way from the centre of the storm.
No longer. As foreign capital has fled and confidence evaporated, the emerging world’s stockmarkets have plunged (in some cases losing half their value) and currencies tumbled. The seizure in the credit market caused havoc, as foreign banks abruptly stopped lending and stepped back from even the most basic banking services, including trade credits.
It could have been called the “Seinfeld Conference.” The once-a-decade gathering of Anglican bishops held this summer in Canterbury””the 2008 Lambeth Conference””was the conference about nothing.
Designed to avoid controversy, Lambeth 2008 set out to make no statements, take no stands, and avoid provoking new conflict within the Anglican Communion. By its own lights, the July 14 to August 3 meeting was a triumph for its organizer and host, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, for during those three weeks the oft foretold crack-up of the Anglican Communion did not happen.
Yet bishops from both the left and right branded the conference a failure. Lambeth 2008 was about nothing, said nothing, and achieved nothing, and by its inaction, the Anglican Communion was left in a worse place than if it had never taken place at all, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said.
Divided over issues of doctrine and discipline, with homosexuality garnering the most media attention, the bishops refrained from hurling anathemas at one another and in the end issued a paper expressing mild statements of concern on global warming, poverty, disease, hunger, domestic violence and other generally bad things””while also mildly affirming””in a non-provocative way””generally good things: peace on earth, the brotherhood of mankind, and church unity.
(ACNS) In your experience, do people suddenly discover or rediscover religion during difficult times like these?
I think, generally speaking, religion is either part of your life or it isn’t. What often happens during a crisis like this is that people come to a temple or a mosque or a church looking to identify with that part of themselves, rather than suddenly finding it in the midst. But clearly there will be some for whom this is the moment when that spiritual part awakens for the first time.
Many people are confronting their worst fears about their vanishing financial security and livelihood. I imagine you must be hearing about these concerns in your pastoral role. How do you comfort someone who is facing the loss of a job or life savings?
I think you try to be there with the person – physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually – that’s the first step. And then, out of that conversation, perhaps you try to give some encouragement and direct them toward services that can explicitly help with job transitions, outplacement, that sort of thing.
From a spiritual perspective, what comfort can you offer?
The basic comfort of the Christian tradition is that God is with us. That doesn’t mean that you won’t lose your job. It doesn’t mean that the hurricane is not going to hit your town or that a plane isn’t going to hit the buildings at the World Trade Center. What it means is that God is in the midst of all that, whatever’s happening.
The 23rd Psalm provides the essence of that: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why not? Not because it’s all going well in the valley of the shadow of death. The promise is, “I will be with you” to the end of time and through all of this. The theology in the Christian tradition and other traditions as well is that the loving presence of God is always in our lives.
Warring Anglican bishops could be forced to confront each other in divorce-style “mediation” or conflict resolution, under proposals published today.
Theologians and canon lawyers responsible for drawing up the drafts of a new covenant, a document which is intended to re-unite the divided Anglican Communion around agreed practices and beliefs, have proposed that different forms of conflict resolution be examined to see if any might be suitable for use by Anglican bishops.
The document, drawn up after consultations with the bishops attending Lambeth Conference earlier this year, discusses the various types of conflict resolution that might be suitable.
Possible models include professionals involved in arbitration, mediation and reconciliation.
Read it all and follow the link to the proposals themselves.
Leaving the Episcopal Church was about more than just leaving a denomination, Gene Prevatt says.
It was also about rejecting “the corruption of the church.”
“One does not have to look too far to see the continuing erosion of our freedoms, rising paganism, and an increasing hostility to the Gospel,” Prevatt wrote in an April church newsletter to fellow members of Christ Church in Savannah.
“God has called us out, and to those who are moving away, we have said, ‘No. We will not go with you.’ This is our turning point in history.”
For Christ Church in Savannah, that turning point began just over a year ago when leaders voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church, claiming the denomination has failed to honor the authority of the scriptures.
An Anglican church in Ottawa may soon be the second in Canada to bless same-sex marriages.
Bishop John Chapman plans to ask the Canadian House of Bishops next week if he can develop an appropriate rite, then designate one parish — possibly Saint John the Evangelist on Somerset Street — to offer blessings to gay couples already married in a civil ceremony.
He told several hundred people gathered at Christ Church Cathedral yesterday for an annual synod, or general meeting, that he wants to take it slowly.
“We have talked about this issue since I was a seminary student in the mid-seventies. We must ‘experience’ the issue as a church before clarity of heart and mind might be attained. For this reason, I hope to proceed, but slowly and cautiously.”
I’ve reserved a date at St. Christopher’s for a Clergy Prayer Summit. This is not, of course, a Clergy Conference, though I will be scheduling one for 2009, rather I see it as a time for active clergy in the diocese to gather and seek God’s blessing on our parishes and ministries. The dates for the Prayer Summit are Sunday, October 26 through Tuesday, October 28. We will begin with a 6:30 p.m. dinner on Sunday evening and conclude with dinner on Tuesday. (If some, coming from farther distances, want to stay Tuesday night there will most likely be space available for that.) How I envision this time is as a balance of teaching on prayer followed by extended times for corporate, small group and personal prayer. Since this will be primarily focused on prayer for our vision, leadership, parish growth and ministry it will be limited first to active priests””that is rectors, vicars and associates in full-time parish ministry. Unfortunately, St. Christopher’s can only accommodate 75 people, thus we will need to make reservations on a first come, first served basis. The cost of the event will be $135. I see this as an appropriate expense for the parish to cover for the clergy. If, however, the funds are not available I am more than willing to help underwrite such an expense. I am hoping we can mobilize some of the various intercessory groups in the diocese to commit to praying for this Clergy Prayer Summit that we might have times of profound spiritual breakthroughs for our parishes and ministries.
KIM LAWTON: It’s a beautiful autumn Sunday in York Harbor, Maine, and members of local churches are doing the Crop Walk. It’s a project to raise money for fighting hunger around the world. Tom and Janie Beecher and their three kids, Thomas, Grace and baby Gus, are among the walkers. For the Beechers, combating global poverty is a deeply personal crusade. They adopted Gus, who’s six months old, from Ethiopia in July.
JANIE SWEENEY BEECHER (Member, St. George’s Episcopal Church, York Harbor, ME): We felt very strongly about the situation in Ethiopia. The extreme poverty, the HIV/AIDS situation just really, really moved us.
LAWTON: The Beechers are members of St. George’s Episcopal Church in York Harbor, a congregation that has put a strong focus on international issues. They say their global concern comes directly from their faith.
The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.
But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun ”” for the first time in my adult life ”” to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist….
…Nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign. Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass – no, make that shameless support – they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather – not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake – but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.
Religious language trips off Barack Obama’s tongue as if he were a native of the Bible Belt.
From the moment he emerged on the national scene, he has spoken to believers in a language few Democrats have mastered: the language of the Bible and of a personal relationship with God.
Sometimes he shares his adult conversion story, describing how he knelt beneath the cross at his Chicago church: “I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me,” he says. “I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works.”
The Episcopal Church has spent nearly $2 million on legal expenses this year, more than four times its budgeted amount, and will run a deficit of $2.5 million in 2009, according to the church’s news service.
The denomination’s Executive Council, meeting in Helena, Mont., this week (Oct. 20-24), budgeted $450,000 for legal expenses in 2008 but spent $1.97 million, according to Episcopal News Service. The well-heeled denomination is engaged in a number of costly legal battles with conservatives who’ve left the Episcopal Church but seek to retain parish property.
Six in 10 Americans think the U.S. is “uniquely blessed” by God, but a higher percentage — almost eight in 10 — think the country sometimes does more harm than good when it relates to the rest of the world, according to a new study on religion and America’s role in the world.
Overall, the study commissioned by the PBS program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly and the United Nations Foundation found that Americans, including majorities of religiously involved citizens, think the country should be involved on the world scene.
Executive Council has called for a reconciliation-oriented conversation with members of Common Cause Partnership, according to the two top officials of The Episcopal Church. They spoke to members of the media Oct. 23 during a brief conference call at the conclusion of the council’s four-day meeting in Helena, Mont.
The council approved a resolution from its Committee for National Concerns, said Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies. Mrs. Anderson said the resolution is based on council’s belief that talk of irreconcilable differences is a contradiction of the Christian gospel.
The suit brought in the Montgomery County Court by David Moyer, former Rector of Good Shepherd Church, Rosemont, against the Diocese of Pennsylvania and Bishop Charles Bennison was dismissed today following the entry of a jury verdict in favor of the Bishop and the Diocese. The trial began on Monday and continued through Wednesday. After closing arguments by counsel this morning, the case went to the jury and the verdict was announced at about 2:45.
The Standing Committee is pleased with the verdict returned in the Montgomery County Court. We never believed that there was any legal or factual basis for the suit, and we are gratified by the jury verdict. We would also like to express our appreciation for the fine work of our attorney, Mary Kohart of Drinker Biddle, who has worked tirelessly on our behalf.