Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt

I share the sadness of my brother Bishop Bill. There was manipulation. We had deliberated long about section 4. They put resolution A to detach section 4 and ask ABC to put a committee. When the resolution was put for voting, we praise the Lord it was rejected.

Then it was like a shock to bring the two main clauses of the resolution we rejected and put it in the resolution we wanted to vote on. It is absolutely wrong. We as members of ACC had decided that we do not want this resolution. We wanted the covenant to go straight to the provinces. This led to what seemed to me to be a lot of confusion on the role of the ACC. The ACC is not a synod to take decisions like this. All we are asking for is that this covenant be sent for a further three years, until 2012, so that every province will have plenty of time. The provinces can make amendments as well after it has passed. There will be time for discussion and reflection. There will be objections and amendments. Yet this body does not want to send it. It was very clear from the rejection of Resolution A they way that the majority in the house wanted to go. This was a shock and confusion and a manipulation.

This was deliberate. Resolution A was rejected and yet was brought back. Even if it is legal I see it as wrong. Also in the last few days, all of us were clear about section 4. Even the Church in Canada had said for the sake of the communion and unity we will receive this covenant. I personally think it is unfair to appoint people from three different provinces who are known to reject the covenant, – New Zealand, the United States and Scotland, – on the resolution committee. Part of this crisis is due to distrust. I must say that all what happened increased the distrust.

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The real danger and promise from the tale of these two bishops hinges on whether this “defeat” of the Covenant will lead to a fresh wounding or to a healing of the Global South movement, which was cynically riven by the “divide and conquer” tactics of the powers that be in London and New York. There is now the potential for reassembling that movement, and Archbishops Mouneer and Orombi will be two key figures in it. Pray, brothers and sisters, for the unity of those who hold the common faith once for all delivered to the saints.

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When a resolution to add this fourth moratorium was moved today, the Presiding Bishop of TEC rose to complain, among other things, that such a moratorium would enable congregations leaving TEC to “alienate their property.”

As usual, nothing could be further from the truth. The key principles set out in the appendix to the Dar es Salaam Statement required both parties “to give assurances that no steps will be taken to alienate property from the Episcopal Church without its consent or to deny use of that property to those congregations.” (WCG Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury at paragraph 34, footnote 11, page 7). It is exactly the kind of “standstill” begged for by +Rowan Williams in his presentation of the WCG Recommendations, where he called all parties to take a step back from what they are doing – that we owe it to the Lord of our Church to do so.

Dr Williams has read the report. He presented its recommendations to the ACC-14. He was present at DES and read that Statement too. Yet he allowed the misrepresentation of the Presiding Bishop to stand, without comment.

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The document, which was advocated by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams earlier this week as the only way to save the fractured Communion, has divided opinion across the Church. In addition, legal questions have been raised as to whether the Church of England itself will be allowed to adopt it.

Now, the representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) decided yesterday (May 8) that the Ridley Cambridge Draft of an Anglican covenant needs more work before it can be presented to the communion’s provinces for adoption. And in a narrow vote, the ACC voted against calling for a moratorium on legal battles over property.

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The 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) by a tight vote on May 8 rejected a move to add a fourth moratorium on issues related to divisions over human sexuality that would have asked for a “cessation of litigation” among member churches of the Anglican Communion involved in disputes over property.

The ACC, however, said it “affirms” the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), which included not just moratoria on the blessing of same-sex unions, the ordination of persons living in same-sex unions, and cross-provincial interventions, but also “relational consequences” for those who breach them. The original text of the resolution had used the word “notes,” instead of “affirms.”

The word “notes” had been used to reflect the “range of views” expressed by delegates in discernment groups, said Anthony Fitchett, chair of the resolutions committee and a lay delegate. Opponents said, however, that using a “more neutral” word was not useful, since the ACC “needs to give an indication of how it feels” about the WCG recommendations.

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At the ACC-14 meeting in Kingston Jamaica the concept of An Anglican Covenant was a central theme on this, the 6th day of the meetings. Over the past few days the delegates had a number of sessions in Discernment Groups discussing the Covenant and the resolution that would be presented.

Much of the debate today centered on the fourth section ”˜Our Covenanted Life Together’ which, unlike the other three sections, some delegates felt had not had the time for comments and feedback from the provinces. After some strong and a vigorous debate the following resolutions were passed by the Consultative council

The Anglican Communion Covenant

Resolved:08.05.09

The ACC:

1. thanks the Covenant Design Group for their faithfulness and responsiveness in producing the drafts for an Anglican Communion Covenant and, in particular, for the Ridley Cambridge Draft submitted to this meeting;
2. recognises that an Anglican Communion Covenant may provide an effective means to strengthen and promote our common life as a Communion;
3. asks the Archbishop of Canterbury, in consultation with the Secretary General, to appoint a small working group to consider and consult with the Provinces on Section 4 and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee;
4. asks the JSC, at that meeting, to approve a final form of Section 4
5. asks the Secretary General to send the revised Ridley Cambridge Text, at that time, only to the member Churches of the Anglican Consultative Council for consideration and decision on acceptance or adoption by them as The Anglican Communion Covenant;
6. asks those member Churches to report to ACC-15 on the progress made in the processes of response to, and acceptance or adoption of, the Covenant.

After the Council had passed the resolutions the Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon explained to the media how the covenant process would be moving forward over the next year and responded to questions.

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After a long, drawn-out debate, and what some delegates referred to as a “confusing” process, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) on May 8 asked that a “small working group” be appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to “consider and consult with the provinces” on Section 4 of the Ridley-Cambridge draft, “and its possible revision.” That group was asked to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee of primates (senior bishops of each Anglican province) and the ACC, which will meet before the end of the year.

The ACC had, by a vote of 47 against, 17 in favour, and one abstention, defeated a section of the resolution that sought to detach the draft’s controversial Section 4, Our Covenanted Life Together, “for further consideration and work.”

Prior to the vote, however, Archbishop Philip Aspinall, primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, noting that the process had bogged down so that session had to be extended, introduced an alternative resolution that addressed the concerns of both proponents and opponents of the issue. Some delegates spoke against the resolution while one, Rev. Janet Trisk of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, introduced an amendment to include two sections from Archbishop Aspinall’s resolution. Those sections were those that called for the appointment of a small working group and for the JSC to “approve a final form of Section 4.” The amendment was carried by a vote of 33 for, 30 against, and 2 abstentions.

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Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas ”” reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start ”” produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,” [Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist] wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is “the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying ”” literally and figuratively.”

These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can’t produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children’s Zone results suggest the reformers are right. The Promise Academy does provide health and psychological services, but it helps kids who aren’t even involved in the other programs the organization offers.

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Kondo, sudan: I want to add my voice and thank the cdg…it seems to me section 4 is the most important…to accept this resolution is to mean we will debate this issue again and again…

Anis: without section 4..we can not call the covenant a covenant..it is section 4 that makes the whole covenant a covenant…the crisis we are going through now is because of the absolute autonomy that this covenant with 123 and 4 affirms the interdependence…we are a communion with autonomy…i would appeal that you would vote against this b/c 1. if we accept this we will lose a great chance to be united…i assure you that there are churches that affirm the whole covenant…and the communion will be divided…if we don’t approve 1234 together…if we wait 10 years we will never get a perfect covenant…the cdg has worked for 3 years very hard..they have broght us a good covenant…we can not undermine the work of the cdg…section 4 is from lambeth and the responses of the diocese/provinces…all that has been done is the commentary has been brought in..its not truet that it hasn’t received any study…it is the outcome of a lot of study…

SE Asia, Stanley Isaac. I want to say that this resolution a should be rejected because it would be disastrous to send to the provinces the text of the covenant without 4 because it would mean nothing for all the rest of us who have been waiting for this document to find a ray of hope for a problem that has divided the communion and embarrassed the churches. This is a defining moment for the communion, We grab it or we dont. It would be a way of united the communion once again in the bond of Christ and truly regard ourselves as one body. That will be a unity only in the past if we do not pass section 4…We have not been taken by surpruse by section 4. I want to express the appreciation of my province we feel disappointed that the concerns to tighten up the appendix, was watered down. We think it is a weak provision of measure for achieving a soluton to the problem. Allow this full text to go forward..

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Diocese of Peru Bishop Bill Godfrey, representing the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, unsuccessfully called for a “listening process for those involved in litigation,” so that they “feel that justice is being done” and that “the ACC hears them.”

Episcopal Church episcopal representative Diocese of New York Bishop Catherine Roskam suggested that, a listening process should include the voice of “joyful Episcopalians — both liberal and conservative — in the re-constituted dioceses of the Episcopal Church.”

“There’s much good there,” she continued. “They’re faithful Episcopalians and their voices need to be heard as well.”

Earlier in the debate, Episcopal Church lay representative Josephine Hicks spoke against having the resolution’s second resolve to “affirm” the continuation group’s recommendations. She argued that while the Episcopal Church had “complied with all the moratoria — at a significant cost,” others have not honored the ban on cross-boundary interventions. These interventions occur when bishops and priests from other communion provinces enter the territory of the Episcopal Church to minister to disaffected members of the church, without the traditionally required permission of the local bishop.

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I find it in-credible when I read that some of the bishops withholding consent around the issue of not adhering strictly to the BCP are, as I know personally, adapting Enriching Our Worship because he does not like the Eucharistic liturgies contained therein. He has exacting standards and, in fact, his revisions are very good. So why deny another gifted and talented priest from exercising his gifts of leadership as a bishop when he is exercising great care and love for the liturgy of the church?

I’m also curious about Anglo-Catholic parishes that still use the 1928 Prayer Book and the 1951 American Missal and wonder whether bishops must insist that such parishes adhere to the 1979 BCP? Again one of Forrester’s strongest detractors allows such diversity in his diocese. And what about parishes that feel strongly about inviting all, even the unbaptized, to the Eucharistic table? This happens all over the country and, shy of instituting a Liturgy Patrol, my guess is it will (and should) continue.

I have heard it said that the model of ministry being practiced and lived out in the Diocese of Northern Michigan is also a cause for some concern. This truly is disturbing. Our church is struggling to find new ways of being the church. What I find amazing is that one small diocese, completely faithful to TEC and having never considered leaving it, is being judged so harshly for its choice of bishop. Here is a man who loves TEC, loves his diocese and is proud of his Anglican heritage and is now facing the possibility of not being able to live out the vision of his diocese which has been the model for dioceses in Scotland, Canada and other parts of TEC.

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A few weeks ago observant Jews put away their Seder plates for another year and began the seven-week waiting period between Passover and Shavuot, the holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It is not a well-known part of the religious calendar to those who are less observant, but it is filled with profound meanings that deserve to be better understood.

The space between the two holidays is called the Omer, and it is commemorated by the “sefirat ha’Omer,” or the counting of the Omer. The Omer was a measure of about two quarts of barley that ancient Jews brought to the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering on the second day of Passover. In Leviticus, Jews are commanded: “You shall count . . . from the day that you brought the Omer as a wave offering” (one placed in a priest’s hand and waved before God).

Even after the destruction of the Temple, the practice of counting the Omer continued — right down to the present day. On each of the 49 nights, religious Jews recite blessings and take note of the number of days before Shavuot. “The whole idea of counting the Omer is to recognize that the freedom of Passover only has meaning if one also couples it with the commitment of Shavuot,” explains Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of New York’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. “One recognizes that liberty is just a step in the direction of the responsibility and commitment that are reflected in the festival of Shavuot, where the Jewish people received the Torah.”

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To the clergy and people of the diocese:

On April 14, 2009, the newly formed diocese of Fort Worth, along with representatives of The Episcopal Church (TEC), filed a lawsuit in a Tarrant Count, Texas, court. The suit names Bishop Iker and the five-person Board of Trustees for the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth as defendants.

As you might remember, at our 2007 diocesan convention we passed a revised canon outlining a process that could be used if a parish disagreed with the course of the diocese. At the end of the process, if reconciliation were not possible, the canon provided that the church property would be released to the congregation. Even after our 2008 convention, where we ratified our decision to separate from TEC by an 80 percent majority, none of the congregations wishing to remain loyal to The Episcopal Church asked for that procedure to be used.

However, the facts allowed the Bishop and the Standing Committee to investigate, and at the end of our investigation, the properties of Trinity Church, Fort Worth, and St. Martin in the Fields, Keller, were deeded to their respective congregations. At the same time, two other parishes ”“ St. Christopher’s in Fort Worth, and St. Luke’s in Stephenville ”“ were contacted. They had outstanding building loans which were made in the name of the Diocese. The Diocese offered to release their properties to them if they would renegotiate the loans and remove the Diocese from their notes. St. Luke’s renegotiated their note and had their property deeded to them. As soon as we hear from St. Christopher’s, we will do the same for them.

We’ve done everything we can think to do to make a settlement with any congregation that wants to stay with TEC. Bishop Iker and the Standing Committee have no wish to take property from those churches that do not wish to remain with us.

But Kathleen Wells, the chancellor for the new TEC diocese, has said publicly it’s all or nothing. “We’re not feudal lords where the bishops get together and play poker and say, ”˜You have this property, and we’ll keep this one.’

“They’re using our name; they’re holding themselves out to be the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth,” Wells said of us.

The lawsuit filed in April demands that properties held by the Corporation for the benefit of the people be given to them. It also asks that we stop using the name and seal of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Wells says the new diocese is merely a continuation of the one originally organized in 1982, located in a geographic area that includes 24 North Central Texas counties. The new diocese claims all 56 congregations in Fort Worth, Arlington, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Wichita Falls, Weatherford, Brownwood, Stephenville, and elsewhere in the 24-county area. “That’s the number we had before Nov. 15, [2008,] when our diocesan convention met and some of these individuals left. We still claim all 55 [sic] and their property,” Wells said.

We will respond to the lawsuit with an appropriate defense. Please keep the bishop, Board of Trustees, and the members of the Standing Committee, in your prayers. Pray that we may respond in humility, in love, and in faith.

The Rev. Dr. Thomas Hightower
President, Standing Committee
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

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Dear Fr Thew Forrester:

I most earnestly beg you to stop talking about Saint Anselm. You simply do not know what you are talking about, and your apologia is not helped by your insistence on perpetuating pseudo-historical claptrap about this great theologian.

In Approaching the Heart of Faith, you quote a passage from Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire in which the authors say that “Anselm’s doctrine of the atonement gave support for holy war” and that his “theology and piety crystallized the religious foundations of the Crusades.” “Christians,” the authors say, “were exhorted to imitate Christ’s self-offering in the cause of God’s justice.” Exhorted by whom? Certainly not by Anselm, who would have rejected any such notion as fundamentally incompatible with his key conclusions in Cur Deus Homo: the sufficiency of the God-man’s self-offering and the inability of fallen human beings to do anything on their own to effect a reconciliation between themselves and God. Indeed, the idea that Anselm’s soteriology could provide theological underpinnings for the Crusades is not merely a gross libel against Anselm but rather obvious nonsense.

The authors seek to paper over this nonsense by sleight of hand, invoking “Peace by the blood of the Cross.” I take it we’re to think that the notion of the bloody Cross as an instrument of peace leads naturally to the Crusades. But for Anselm, the peace that is made by the blood of the Cross is peace between God and humanity — a peace that is entirely of God’s own making, that he initiates and sustains because he loves us and created us for himself — and the blood of the Cross can only be the blood of the God-man, offered once for all as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and (yes) satisfaction. How any reasonable or fair-minded person can think that this soteriology supports wars of conquest and religious imperialism is beyond me.

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THE Anglican Communion may not survive its current crisis over authority and dif­fering theological perspectives, the Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged on Tuesday.

But he insisted: “Even if we are separated by a number of canonical, theological determinations; even if we blew apart as a communion in chaos and disruption, which God forbid, sooner or later we would have to hear the voice of Christ say: ”˜There’s your brother, there’s your sister, there’s a long journey for you together in the path towards reconciliation.’”

Dr Williams was giving the Anglican Con­sul­tative Council (ACC) a 40-minute presenta­tion on the recommendations of the final report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), the body created, as he put it, to “con­tain the chaos and division” that threatened the Communion over the issue of human sexuality.

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At one bank in Alabama, the problem is a construction bust. At two in Ohio, the trouble is real estate. And in San Francisco, at Wells Fargo, the worry is credit cards ”” a staggering 26 percent of that bank’s card loans, federal regulators have concluded, might go bad if the economy takes a turn for the worse.

The stress tests released by the Obama administration Thursday painted a broad montage of the troubles in the nation’s banking industry and, for the first time, drew a stark dividing line through the new landscape of American finance.

On one side are institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which regulators deemed stronger than their peers ”” perhaps strong enough to repay billions of bailout dollars and wriggle free of government control.

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Q: How did the idea to have “discernment groups” come about?

A: One of the things that the (2008) Lambeth Conference was trying to achieve was to create a process within the conference itself to enable every voice to be heard and we felt that there were two or three things that needed to happen. First of all, there needed to be trust. Secondly, there needed to be groups that were small enough for people not to feel that they had too large a group of people they were talking to. And thirdly, a process where they didn’t have to have everything very clearly worked out in their minds before they could speak and talk.
The way we did it at the Lambeth Conference was, first of all, we put people into Bible study groups, and those were groups of eight or nine people that met every day. And so, there was a sense of trust growing out between those Bible study groups. Then, we put five Bible study groups together to make an indaba group. So we were building on units that were already getting to know one another.
We took that same principle here. We created Bible study groups of eight or nine people with a cross section of people across the Communion, trying to make sure that all the groups had bishops, clergy and laity within them. And then we combined three Bible study groups into the four discernment groups.

Q: Why not just call them indaba?
A: There was quite a lot of confusion about why the Lambeth Conference chose the word indaba. My reading of the way it came about was that when indaba was introduced as a way of describing what was going on at Lambeth, it was actually describing the whole process at the Conference, not just what happened in those two-hour groups, the second half of each morning.

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The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (IASCER) on May 7 asked the 14th ACC meeting here to endorse a set of resolutions, including one that urges the resumption of the Anglican Communion’s dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox Churches of the Middle East.

The resolutions and documents, compiled in a book, The Vision Before Us, also asked the ACC to commend to member provinces for adoption, “key sections” which include matters ranging from the administration of baptism and eucharist, to guidelines for ecumenical participation in ordinations to the Four Principles of Anglican Engagement in Ecumenism.

Gregory Cameron, who is bishop of the Welsh diocese of St. Asaph and former IASCER director, likened the book to “a box of chocolates” that offers many delights and surprises.

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At the ACC-13 meeting in Nottingham a resolution was passed that asked the Secretary General to do a number of things in connection with the Listening Process. They included:

* To collate relevant research studies, statements, resolutions and other material on these matters from the various Provinces and other interested bodies within those Provinces
* To make such material available for study, discussion and reflection within each member Church of the Communion
* To identify and allocate adequate resources for this work, and to report progress on it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the next Lambeth Conference and the next meeting of this Council, and to copy such reports to the Provinces.

As a result of this motion The Revd Canon Philip Groves was hired as the facilitator of the Listening process to work within the Anglican Communion Office. Philip is a canon of All Saints’ Mpwapwa, Tanzania and continues his parish ministry in England. Following his presentation at ACC-14 and the announcement of The Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Project. In the podcast that follows he talks about the challenges and opportunities of the listening process and the role the new project will play in assisting people to hear and listen to God and to one another on the subject of human sexuality.

This one is over 35 minutes; listen to it all.

At Church gatherings such as ACC-14 the delegates experience different styles of worship, theology and conversations that fosters growth and development in each person. There are also moments when decisions need to be made-the election of a new chairperson, resolutions on very important matters and constitutional questions to name a few. In those moments there is often needed a clear legal mind to help with the process and settle matters when disputes arise. The Anglican Consultative Council has been blessed with the presence of Canon John Rees as its legal Advisor since 1995.

John is a practicing solicitor and Provincial Registrar to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He has advised successive Archbishops for over 20 years. He was also the Convener of the Anglican Communion Legal Advisers Network since its inception in 2001. He served as the Legal Consultant to the Lambeth Commission in 2003-04.

John is an Honourary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral and in the following podcast responded to a variety of constitutional and legal questions that affect the Anglican Communion.

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The relatively modest size of the hole discovered by regulators carrying out the tests, which were based on an “adverse” economic scenario, led to both applause from investors who believe the worst is over and skepticism among those who think the examination wasn’t rigorous enough.

“The fears of nationalization or of failure have more or less disappeared, and now what we’re getting is details of how banks are going to fill in their capital deficiencies,” said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management in Chicago.

The doubters believe the banks will need much more of a capital cushion than stipulated by the regulators, as the U.S. jobless rate soars and the housing market and economy takes time to pull out of a funk, driving up credit losses.

“I’m a skeptic. I don’t see this as a genuine audit. They have been playing the marketing game strongly lately,” said Robert Andres, president of Andres Capital Management in Philadelphia.

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Pakistani planes bombed the Taliban in their Swat Valley bastion today, after the prime minister ordered elimination of “militants and terrorists” and on the heels of a commitment to Washington to fight extremists.

The struggle in the scenic north-western valley 80 miles from Islamabad and a former centre for tourism has become a test of Pakistan’s resolve to fight a growing Taliban insurgency that has alarmed the United States.

Helicopter gunships, fighters and troops were all involved in Swat operations, and up to 17 militants were killed after as many as 55 were killed the previous day, military officials said.

“To a rough estimate there are between 4,000 to 5,000 militants … present in Swat,” Major-General Athar Abbas, military spokesman, said in an interview with Dawn TV.

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6 The administration seems to bounce back and forth between emphasizing building a strong capital base and helping BHC[Bank Holding Company]’s get rid of toxic assets. I think the capital cushion is more important.
7 $34 B more for Bank of America is a big number.
8 I continue to be confused about why the administration is so confident they will not need to ask Congress for more TARP money, especially if they intend to use a lot of cash to prevent GM from liquidating.

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The Compass Rose Society, an international body which seeks to support the ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion is seeking “a more formal relationship” with the Anglican Consultative Council, its president told the council on May 6.

Currently, the Compass Rose Society is “a free-floating body with no group to which it connects and no accountability,” said its president, Canadian Bishop Philip Poole, in an address at the ACC meeting here. “I would like to ask whether we can have a more formal relationship so that the Compass Rose Society can continue for generations to come.”

There have been misconceptions that the Compass Rose Society is merely “an administrative bureaucracy” that doles out money to Anglican bodies, said Bishop Poole, who is also a suffragan (assistant) bishop in the diocese of Toronto (York-Credit Valley). “We’re much more than a source of money for meetings,” he said, adding that the Compass Rose Society was “taking responsibility” for the image that it projects and was doing something to change it.

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From here (posted earlier, but this section was not excerpted):

However, it was also drawn to Canon Kearon’s attention that another infringement of the requirements of the instruments of communion had been the continuance of the lawsuits against orthodox churches in North America by TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. The cessation of these lawsuits was a requirement of the Dar-es-Salaam Primates Meeting in 2007 as part of the compliance required of TEC and the ACoC with the Windsor Report and thus a condition for the re-entry of TEC and ACoC delegates to the Councils of the Communion ( they had been asked to withdraw from ACC 13 at Nottingham, but attended as visitors). How was it that TEC and ACoC had not complied with a requirement of the instruments of communion, yet had been readmitted, and that Uganda was not complying with the embargo on cross-border jurisdiction and yet its selected delegate was barred? The answer given that Uganda as a province had not been barred, only its delegate who was a product of cross-border intervention.

Federal regulators told the country’s 19 largest banks that they must raise $75 billion in extra capital by November, a more upbeat verdict on the health of the financial system than the industry had feared just two months ago.

Ten of the 19 bank holding companies deemed “too big to fail” by the Obama administration will be required to raise additional capital, according to the results of the government’s stress tests, released late Thursday afternoon. But the 10 banks will have to raise much less capital than some analysts had expected as recently as a few days ago.

“With the clarity today’s announcement will bring, we hope banks are going to get back to the business of banking,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said during a news briefing on Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Geithner noted that banks had a long way to go to restore the nation’s confidence in the financial industry, and that they could get a start in generating good will by lending more.

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”¦ ”˜the way’ that John speaks of is not about believing doctrines about Jesus. Rather, ”˜the way’ is what we see incarnate in Jesus: the path of death and resurrection as the way to rebirth in God. According to John, this is the only way ”“ . . . it is ”˜the way’ spoken of by all the major religions of the world. Dying and rising is the way. Thus Jesus is ”˜the Way’ ”“ the way become flesh. Rather than being the unique revelation of a way known only in him, his life and death are the incarnation of a universal way known in all of the enduring religions.

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